Elijah Cummings: “This is a very important hearing to me because I live in a neighborhood where many of these people return, and I see…”

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…

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

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.