Elijah Cummings: “I also want to recognize Representative Gerry Connolly, the Ranking Member of the Government Operations Subcommittee…”

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.

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…

The American people demanded that their representatives in Washington fight for them and for what affects their lives on a day-to-day basis.

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.