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This Thursday, the house of Representatives will hold its first hearing on DC Statehood in over 25 years. There are more details available at City Paper about the timing of the bill.

There's also an interesting opinion piece from John Oliver circa 2015. It's here on YouTube.

Please support this. It's the equivalent of Glasgow, Dresden, or Lyons -- all of which have smaller populations than we do -- not having representation in their respective Parliaments. We have a larger population than Wyoming, Vermont, and within spitting distance of North Dakota's. By city, we have a larger population than Boston proper.

We pay more income tax per capita than any state does -- unlike most of the territories, including 60% of Puerto Rico's population, who are exempt from US taxes. We have all the duties of citizenship, while lacking the basic right of representation.

Taxes. We pay more per capita than any state (the most recent year I could find the per capita rates for was 2015).

Our gross income tax revenue for 2018 was 28,443,717,000. Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Vermont combined paid in 27,443,756,000. They get 10 Senators; DC gets none. They each have one Representative in the House; DC has a non-voting delegate.

The District of Columbia has a greater population (702,455) than Vermont (636,299) or Wyoming (577,737). Alaska has ~35,000 more than the District, but by the time the new Census is completed, we may be within 10,000 of population.

The Mayor of the District of Columbia has proclaimed July DC Statehood month. In honor of this, even though I didn't vote her, I plan to leave a reason a day why we should have statehood. They mostly add up to the same thing: because it's both right and fair to do so.

Today's fact, for all of those who say we're too small to be a state: We're bigger than Liechtenstein. If a whole country can be smaller, there's no reason a state can't be our size.