From the ACLU, this is at Liberty.

I'm Emerson Sykes, a staff attorney here at the ACLU and your host.

This week's guest is Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, who represents the people of Washington, D.C.

in the House of Representatives.

She's currently leading an initiative to make the District of Columbia the 51st state.

Her bill, H.R. 51, has 211 co-sponsors and is scheduled for a hearing on July 24th.

This fight for statehood is only the latest in a long

line of civil rights battles waged by Congresswoman Norton. In the late 1960s, she was

assistant legal director at the ACLU. Since then, she's been a law professor at NYU in Georgetown,

led the New York City Human Rights Commission, and chaired the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,

among many other roles over more than six decades in public service.

She served in Congresswoman Norton. It's an honor and a pleasure to have you on the show.

Thanks very much for taking the time to speak with us.

Pleased to be with you.

I'd like to start with D.C. statehood.

On a basic level, how on earth is it that D.C. residents are not represented by a voting

member in Congress.

Many Americans have no idea that this is the case.

Well, as we close in on a House vote where we almost have enough members as I speak to pass

it, we are reminded of the anomaly that most Americans think we have the same rights they do

and don't even know that the 700,000 people who live in the nation's capital do not have

a full voting right in the House of Representatives,

...