House panel approves bill to grant D.C. statehood
14 April 2021
The House Oversight Committee on Wednesday advanced legislation that would make Washington, D.C. the 51st state, setting the stage for a vote by the full chamber for the second year in a row.
Why it matters: Statehood for the District is a priority for Democrats that will likely clear the House largely along party lines like it did last year, but it faces a much tougher path in the divided Senate, where it would need 60 votes.
How it works: The bill would grant D.C. one representative in the House and two senators.
- Republicans have argued that the measure is an unconstitutional power grab that the country's founders did not envisage. Democrats have painted statehood as a civil rights issue, and a matter of enfranchisement for the city's Black plurality.
- The District tends to vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.
What they're saying: "The United States is the only democratic country that denies both voting rights in the national legislature and local self-government to the people of its capital. That is wrong," House Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney said in her opening statement at Wednesday's vote.
- D.C.'s nonvoting House member Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton told the Committee: "Congress can no longer exclude D.C. residents from the democratic process, forcing residents to watch from the sidelines as Congress votes on laws that affect the nation or votes even on the laws of the duly elected D.C. government."
What's next: The full House is expected to vote on the measure next week.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.