The House Oversight Committee has advanced a bill that would make Washington, D.C., the 51st state. The Washington, D.C. Admission Act passed out of committee on a party-line vote, over unanimous Republican opposition. The full House is set to vote on the bill next week. The District of Columbia has one of the highest per capita populations of African Americans of any major U.S. city and is home to over 700,000 people — more than the states of Wyoming and Vermont. Yet residents have no representation in the Senate and send only a single, nonvoting delegate to the House of Representatives.