Elijah Cummings: “We have to act. That is why I said it from the very beginning.”

On my mother's dying bed, 92 years old, former sharecropper, her last words were, 'Do not let them take our votes away from us.' She had fought and seen people harmed, beaten, trying to vote. Talk about inalienable rights. Voting is…

I am extremely proud that our committee is holding the first hearing on D.C. Statehood in the House of Representatives in more than 25 years.

I really do think that we are in a moral situation. People are striving to live, trying to breathe the air of our country, trying to be better, trying to be healthy.

We are better than where we are. We are better than this.