Mr. President, I rise because it is a historic day. It is a historic day because the House is scheduled to pass H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act. My original intent was to speak about that, but before I do, I want to honor my…
Mr. President, I rise because it is a historic day. It is a historic day because the House is scheduled to pass H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act. My original intent was to speak about that, but before I do, I want to honor my colleagues who have worked very hard on the hate crimes legislation that we will tackle later today.
I want to thank Senators Hirono and Duckworth and Senator Collins for working with them. I want to thank Senators Blumenthal and Moran and all the Senators who have worked to get us at the threshold where we will do something bipartisan that will send comfort to people around the country who are worried about being targeted because of who they are.
In honor of my colleagues who have worked hard, I just want to tell you a story about Heather Heyer, the Virginian for whom the NO HATE Act is partially named, who was killed when she was 32 in 2017 by a White supremacist in Charlottesville.
I didn't know Heather--I know her mother Susan pretty well--but I went to Heather's funeral. Let me tell you this amazing story about Heather Heyer.
Heather was a waitress, and she saw an ad in the newspaper to apply to be a paralegal at a local law firm specializing in bankruptcy. A Charlottesville attorney, an African-American man, had a bankruptcy firm. He needed a paralegal, put an ad in the paper, and got a lot of applications. He got this application from Heather Heyer. The other applicants had paralegal degrees. Heather Heyer was a waitress who didn't have a paralegal degree, but something about the letter made him think, well, I at least have to talk to this person.
He interviewed those with the paralegal degrees, and then he interviewed Heather Heyer and was very struck with her personality but said: Look, I am interviewing for people to be a paralegal. You don't have background in this area. You are a waitress. Why do you think you can do this job?
Heather said: Because I am a waitress, I listen to people all day long, and I want to tell you about some of my customers--the elderly widower who comes in every Tuesday for lunch, and I know his order, and I know how to converse with him to lighten his mood.
She went on to describe some of the people in the restaurant she had served for years. Then she looked at this attorney and said: You are a bankruptcy lawyer. The people who come to you are hurting. They need to be listened to. They are worried about losing everything. I think you couldn't do better than to hire somebody who has made a specialist out of listening to other people.
He said: Well, you may not have a degree, but you have answered that in a wonderful way, and I am going to hire you.
He hired Heather. Heather ended up, as he described at her funeral service, kind of becoming like the office den mother, manager, et cetera, who was so good dealing with clients who were so very worried when they came to see him.
One night after she had been working with him for a while, they worked late and they left the office. As they left the office, Heather's relatively new boyfriend was waiting outside. Heather introduced him to her boss.
The next day, the attorney noticed that Heather wasn't her normal, talkative self, that she wasn't in a very good mood.
At the end of the day, he said to her: Heather, is something wrong?
She said: Yes. I broke up with my boyfriend last night.
He said: Well, I just met him last night outside the office. He seemed like a wonderful guy.
She said: Well, I thought he was a wonderful guy, but when he saw that I was working for a Black man, he started to criticize me for that, and I had no choice but to break up with him.
She is Heather Heyer. She is the woman whom we are honoring in passing the NO HATE amendment as part of the hate crimes bill today, and I appreciate my colleagues for including her in the NO HATE amendment that will be part of this bill.
Washington, D.C. Admission Act
Mr. President, our colleagues in the House today are acting on H.R. 51, and there is an equivalent bill, S. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act. As somebody who represents a State just a few miles from DC, I didn't want to let this historic day pass without saying a word about it.
The bill would, as everyone knows, make Washington, DC, the Nation's 51st State. I am proud to serve as an original cosponsor of the Senate version, led by my colleague Senator Carper. The bill was introduced earlier this year after many previous efforts with a record number of cosponsors, and I am proud to say that statehood for DC is enjoying the largest support in years.
The right to vote is the cornerstone of our American democratic society. Through free and fair elections, ordinary citizens choose the leaders and direction of our country; yet some 712,000 residents of the Nation's Capital do not enjoy the right fully.
For too long, Virginia's neighbors in DC have been denied their civil rights and have been subject to taxation without full representation in Congress, which is a founding principle of our Nation.
Virginians love history. So, on May 29, 1765, Patrick Henry gave his famous
speech before the Virginia House of Burgesses, encouraging the passage of the five resolutions, commonly referred to as the Virginia Resolves, to address the Stamp Act. The act that was passed the following day included four of his resolves.
Everybody remembers that the Stamp Act of 1765 levied an unfair tax on American Colonies on paper goods, newspapers, almanacs, pamphlets, and legal documents. The Crown was worried about the content of those documents, so it levied the tax.
In his first resolve, Henry declared that Virginians should be entitled to ``all of the liberties, privileges, franchises, and immunities'' that other British subjects enjoyed. He wanted for Virginians the same rights enjoyed by people living in Britain, thousands of miles away.
I can't help but notice the parallel. We stand in the District of Columbia, the seat of our Nation's Federal Government. Not thousands of miles away but just across the Potomac River or just over the border in Maryland, hundreds of thousands of American citizens don't enjoy the same ``liberties, privileges, franchises, and immunities'' as those in Virginia, Maryland, or other States.
In his third resolve, Patrick Henry stated:
The taxation of the people by themselves, or by persons
chosen by themselves to represent them, who can only know
what taxes the people can bear, or the easiest method of
raising them, and must themselves be affected by every tax
laid on the people, is the only security against a burdensome
taxation, and the distinguishing characteristic of British
freedom, without which the ancient constitution cannot exist.
To date, DC pays more in Federal taxes per capita than any State. Its residents pay more in Federal taxes per capita than any State and more total Federal taxes than 22 States. Yet, for more than 200 years, the people of Washington, DC, have been denied what Patrick Henry urged on the Virginia House of Burgesses as a reason for American independence. DC not only pays more per capital Federal taxes than any State, it is also subject to a higher degree of congressional regulation of its internal affairs than any other State. So it is both taxed and overregulated without representation.
DC meets the two criteria that have always been the test of admission of a new State into the Union: sufficient population and a demonstrated desire by the population for statehood.
Congress used to establish minimal required populations for statehood. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, for example, incorporated territories into the United States in the upper Midwest and allowed that they could become States once their populations exceeded 60,000. While there is no such statutory minimum today, all would acknowledge that DC, because it has a larger population than both Wyoming and Vermont and is close to the populations of the two Dakotas, is sufficiently sizable to be a State.
DC has also demonstrated its desire to be a State over and over again by popular referendum. Most recently, in 2016, a statehood referendum was supported by 86 percent of DC residents.
So DC meets the traditional test for statehood. Its people are both taxed and regulated by a Congress that does not include representatives who can advocate on their behalf.
Finally, I support adding a 51st star to the American flag because it will show that we are still a thriving nation. We haven't added a State in nearly 70 years. This is the longest period in American history without adding a State. Adding DC as a State will show the world that America is still a confident and growing nation with our best days ahead of us, not a fixed, inward, and static nation with our best days behind us.
With that, I stand here today to call on my colleagues in the Senate to give full and fair consideration to H.R. 51, which will pass today, and S. 51 and provide the more than 700,000 residents of our Nation's Capital the full and equal citizenship that Patrick Henry demanded in 1775 and that the rest of the country enjoys today.
I yield the floor