On a recent weekday evening, about 60 young activists from across the country logged onto a Zoom meeting. They were preparing for a virtual lobbying day, when they’d meet with their U.S. senators about making Washington, D.C., the 51st state.
“You have to be confident,” Demi Stratmon, 22, told the group. Stratmon works for 51 for 51, a D.C. statehood organization. “They are your elected officials, and you have the right to speak with them,” she says.
Stratmon and her fellow Washingtonians — more than 700,000 of them — don’t have any senators to lobby themselves. The District’s representative to Congress, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, can’t vote on final versions of bills. Congress also has the power to change D.C.’s budget and local laws.
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