This post was updated Oct. 5 at 7:39 p.m.

The nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., has been fighting for equal representation through attaining statehood.

Over many years, but especially since the Civil Rights Movement, Washington citizens have hoped to see their city turned into the United States’ 51st state, with political activist groups working toward statehood and bills being introduced in Congress. Second-year biochemistry student Victoria Tong, who hails from the greater D.C. area, said this idea is summed up best by the slogan on Washington-issued license plates, which read “No Taxation Without Representation” – a reference to American Revolution-era political protests.

The District of Columbia, otherwise known as Washington, D.C., became the U.S. federal district in the late 18th century. Strategically located next to Maryland and Virginia – which both ceded land to form the new city – D.C. formed with the intention to remain separate from other states.

“They (The Founding Fathers) were fighting over where the capital should be – the North or the South,” said Josh Burch, a co-founder of Neighbors United for DC Statehood, a grassroots group committed to attaining statehood for the district. “They wanted to create this entity that wasn’t aligned with any one state.”

During colonial times, there were concerns that one city, Philadelphia or New York, for instance, could wield its unique power to advance a region’s political agenda, Burch said. The early leaders of the country sought out its compromise in the district to avoid choosing one of the 13 states as the capital – but unwittingly disenfranchised the individuals who resided there, Burch added.

Now, despite a present population of nearly 700,000 – one that is larger than that of both Vermont and Wyoming – Washington, D.C., currently lacks voting representation in Congress, with one non-voting delegate in the U.S. House of Representatives and no representatives in the U.S. Senate. As a result, residents are subject to the final say of the federal legislative branch without input, which can block certain Washington policies.

Residents of the district also have no official say in shaping federal policy or in confirming federal judges, Burch said. Citizens of the U.S. capital also did not gain the right to vote in presidential elections until the passage of the 23rd Amendment in the early 1960s.

Despite fulfilling all the obligations of American citizenship, including paying federal taxes and men registering for the draft at age 18, residents are not granted all the rights as such, Burch added.

“Our democracy has never caught up with the reality of what’s in the District of Columbia,” Burch said.

Burch said reformists have now turned their goals more resolutely toward statehood as opposed to simple representation through constitutional amendments, which can be repealed under certain circumstances.

“Statehood is the only thing that gets us full equality with the 50 states and is irrevocable,” Burch said. “That’s why the people of D.C. had coalesced around statehood.”

Eleanor Holmes Norton, the delegate representing Washington in the House of Representatives, also said statehood would allow the district to become the complete equivalent of other states. She first introduced the Washington, D.C. Admission Act in 2019 as legislation that would turn most of today’s Washington, D.C., into the state of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth, alongside granting two senators and one voting representative. The act has since passed the House but not the Senate in the 116th and 117th Congress.

“That’s my first bill that I introduce every single session of Congress,” Norton said. “I have gotten virtually every Democrat to sign onto the bill.”

The representative said because territories usually become states in pairs – one Republican state and one Democratic state at a time – the act has not passed in part because Washington has lacked a Republican-leaning counterpart.

Norton said the most viable option would be to have Puerto Rico – which leans conservative – become a state simultaneously. Burch said he would support its or any other jurisdiction’s request for statehood in order for D.C. to do the same.

In addition to Washington being too Democratic, some also do not wish for the district – which has a 45% Black population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau – to gain statehood status because of how its demographics are distributed, Burch said.

“It’s the four too’s: We’re too Black, we’re too urban, we’re too poor and we’re too Democratic,” Burch said. “Those are the four underlying factors – what we look like and how we vote as a people is a reason why many people are opposed to us being a state.”

Tong said Washington being able to have representatives in Congress to advocate for the city’s progressive values, such as access to abortion, would be particularly impactful.

“Because of how partisan and divided Congress is right now, this few additional votes on one side or the other can make like a big difference,” Tong said.

Should the district become the 51st state, there wouldn’t necessarily need to be a major transition, Burch said, because its operations already closely mimic those of a state. He said the only real change may be that Washington would earn home rule – meaning Congress would no longer have the authority to mold its laws.

Ultimately, the statehood movement intends to give a voice to those who need it, Tong said.

“There are so many people who aren’t having a say in the nation’s laws,” Tong said. “I think something definitely should change about that.”