Elijah Cummings: “I would hope that you would make it a priority with regard to Mr. Walker's request.”

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…

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.

It is only recently in the last 50 years or so that many of these laws have changed.