Siren: HuffPost Reports Tester Backs Statehood for DC

This is the easiest way to sum it up for you: It would weaken Montana, and strengthen Washington, DC.

Montana may not get additional representation in Congress following the Census, but if Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) gets his way, Washington, DC will have even greater power in both the House and the Senate.

The Huffington Post is reporting that Tester is now backing a D.C. statehood bill that would grant statehood to the District of Columbia. That would also give D.C. two voting members in the US Senate and in the US House of Representatives, effectively weakening Montana's power in Congress.

As The Huffington Post reports:

Stabenow, Peters and Tester co-sponsored the bill on Monday. Peters support is notable, given that he is ranking Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the panel that would first consider the statehood bill in the chamber. If Democrats win control of the Senate in November, he presumably would become the chairman.

 

All this comes as The Montana Free Press reports that Montana may be unlikely to gain a second seat in Congress due to lagging responses in the current Census:

Members of the commission tasked with redrawing Montana’s legislative boundaries following the 2020 census expressed frustration over the state’s dragging response rate in Native communities and other rural areas June 10, citing complications from the COVID-19 pandemic that have disrupted get-out-the-count efforts.