Washington, D.C. Admission Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I first want to thank my colleague and friend Senator Carper for leading this effort with S. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act. It is long overdue that we acknowledge an injustice in our country and give the citizens of the District of Columbia their full representation rights by statehood.

I have been working on this issue for a long time. When I was the speaker of the Maryland General Assembly almost 40 years ago, the Maryland General Assembly took action to give full representation to the people of the District in the Congress of the United States. That was 40 years ago, and we are still working on this issue. It is long overdue that we acknowledge a shortcoming in our own system for 700,000 residents of the District of Columbia.

I had the honor of chairing the U.S. Helsinki Commission. It is the implementing arm for the Helsinki Final Act of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It has the membership of all of the countries of Europe and the former Soviet Union, Central Asia, Canada, and the United States. I mention that because in 1975, those countries entered into an agreement on basic, fundamental democratic principles, including the right to have representative government.

That document also gives us the opportunity and obligation to question whether member states are in compliance with the Helsinki Final Act. Quite frankly, we have used that opportunity to raise issues in countries.

Our Presiding Officer has been very aggressive in his comments about Russia, and we have used that to bring up the fact that Russia violated the commitments of the Helsinki Final Act when it invaded Ukraine and when it took over Crimea, and it is still interfering with the sovereignty of Ukraine. We have offered our objections when Russia's Government has stepped on the human rights of the people of its own country--like those of Aleksei Navalny's, the opposition leader, being imprisoned and tortured. That is in violation of the Helsinki Final Act. We have raised those issues.

We have raised those issues about another member state, Turkey, when they have jailed journalists or failed to allow civil society an opportunity to be heard, for they are violations of the Helsinki Final Act.

For us to have credibility in raising these issues of other countries that are violating the fundamental principles, we have to self-evaluate where we are. If we are going to be leaders, we have to acknowledge our own shortcomings and take steps to eliminate those shortcomings.

Quite frankly, we are an outlier when it comes to the representation for the people of the District of Columbia. We have violated their basic rights. We are the only country in the world wherein the citizens of its capital do not have the opportunity to vote for representatives in the national legislature. That is not a distinction that we want to have

The 700,000 people who live in the District are being denied representation in their government. As has been pointed out, it is larger than some of our States. Those States have fewer people but have two U.S. Senators and a Member of the House of Representatives, and the people of the District should be likewise treated.

This is not a matter of politics; this is a matter of fundamental rights. America's strength is in our values, in who we are as a people. Our ability to lead globally depends upon our doing the right thing at home.

We need to give the District of Columbia that status. The House has already done this. It passed H.R. 51. It has done this and has given the bill to us. All we need to do now is take it up and pass it. So let us act now, at long last, and do what is right for the people of the District and do what is right for the people of our Nation by correcting this violation that we have in our system. Let's pass S. 51, led by Senator Carper, for DC statehood and make sure that America continues to lead in democratic values around the world.

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