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A reminder that Strom Thurmond voted to give DC two senators on human rights grounds in 1978. Passed 289–127 in the House and 67–32 in the Senate. The amendment died in the state legislatures. https://twitter.com/Higginbotham4WV/status/1355278381231779842
You can read more about the political calculus at the time here. The short story is that more black people were voting in the South. Anyway, here's West Virginia's Robert Byrd, then Senate Majority Leader, explaining why he voted to give DC two senators. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1978/08/27/southern-attitude-aided-dc-bill/10bb5526-7383-4e75-8c57-fc4dfadf0e1d/
This was a constitutional amendment that would've given DC full voting rights in Congress without making it a state. Its failure is one reason why we're now talking about granting statehood, which is passed like a regular bill without state ratifications. https://mobile.twitter.com/juanhenriquez47/status/1355951259635732484
Well, most of the states that bothered taking it up and passing it before expiration.were in the north. West Virginia ratified it! https://mobile.twitter.com/jessewegman/status/1355955182031532037
Again, Bob Byrd championed giving DC two Senators. File this comment away for safekeeping. https://twitter.com/billscher/status/1357426484944732165
