Austin News

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton recently sent a letter to the Biden administration and several congressmen to express his opposition toward statehood for the District of Columbia.

According to Paxton and other Republicans, this recent push for D.C. statehood is a veiled attempt by Democrats to increase their political influence.

"If D.C. unlawfully becomes a state, it will create a super-state that has privilege and primacy over all others," Paxton stated in his letter, "I will use every legal tool available to stop hyper-partisans and elites from undermining our 50 states and granting themselves greater authority."

House Resolution 51 would establish the State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth, named after Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave who became a prominent activist, author and public speaker who lived much of his life in Washington, D.C.

"The United States is a republic, but its capital lacks full representation," Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney said. "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. It violates everything we stand for as Americans."

Republicans maintain that admitting D.C. as a state would only upset the balance of power by adding two Senate seats that would perpetually be held by Democrats.

“Our Founding Fathers explicitly set aside a federal district to serve as the seat of government. It was never intended to operate as a state, and for good reason,” Paxton said.

Washington, D.C., which currently has a population of 700,000 people,  currently pays more federal taxes than 22 other states , as well as more per capita than all other states, according to CBS news. The D.C. statehood bill was  reportedly very popular among the Democrats with 215 cosponsors when under review by the House Oversight Committee. The House of Representatives passed an identical version of the bill last year, but it remained in the Senate, when Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) declined to submit the bill.

The House Oversight Committee voted along party lines 25-19 to support statehood and send the bill to the House for a full vote.