The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org. April 23, 2021 House Votes to Make "Washington, Douglass Commonwealth" the 51st State ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The House voted Thursday to make Washington, D.C., the 51st U.S. state. The new state would be called "Washington, Douglass Commonwealth," after abolitionist Frederick Douglass, and would exclude federal buildings and monuments. The measure would give over 700,000 D.C. residents one representative in the House and two senators. The Biden administration has backed the bid for statehood, but it faces a stiff battle in the evenly divided Senate, where it would need 60 votes to pass. .