DC statehood bill picks up Senate holdout

A bill to make the District of Columbia the country’s 51st state is picking up support from a key Democratic holdout in the Senate. 

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) signed on as the 45th co-sponsor of the bill. It’s a boost from when Democrats reintroduced the bill earlier this year with 38 co-sponsors, which set a record at the time for the most support the bill had gotten in the Senate. 

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), who has been leading work on the bill in the Senate, touted Shaheen’s endorsement as a clear sign of momentum for the bill. 

“We have a moral obligation to see this through for our fellow Americans reside in D.C., and I have every confidence that this legislation can get to the President’s desk this Congress,” Carper said in a statement. 

The bill passed the House last month and it has picked up more support in the Senate since its reintroduction.

In addition to Shaheen, Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) and John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) have also signed on this year. 

But the bill faces a less certain path to passage in the Senate, despite Democratic control of the chamber.

To pass under the current rules, Democrats would need the support of all 50 of their members and 10 Republicans.

But the bill doesn’t have any GOP co-sponsors and doesn’t unify Democrats. 

Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with Democrats, have not signed on as co-sponsors. 

And Manchin said late last month that he’s opposed to the bill and that “if Congress wants to make D.C. a state, it should propose a constitutional amendment … and let the people of America vote.”

“I would tell all my friends … if you go down that path because you want to be politically popular … you know it’s going to go to the Supreme Court,” Manchin said. “So why not do it the right way?”

–Updated at 1 p.m.