"RESIDENCY MAY RESULT IN THE LOSS OF YOUR BASIC CIVIL RIGHTS."
The sign outside Sen. Michael Brown's home is anything but subtle.
D.C.'s shadow senator tweeted a video of himself standing in front of the sign, days after West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin said he opposed unilateral action by Congress to make the nation’s capital a state.
His house is one of the first to see when crossing into The District from Maryland at the Westmoreland Circle.
"It's time to let America know that the people of the District of Columbia do not have the rights that they paid for with their taxes and their service," Brown says in the video. "It's time to end taxation without representation. It's time to make the District of Columbia the 51st state."
The House voted in favor of D.C. statehood on April 22, sending the legislation to the Senate, where it would require 60 votes to be approved. Manchin's opposition makes that even tougher.
An identical statehood bill passed the House in 2020, but it quickly died in the Republican-controlled Senate.
D.C. has long chafed under its relationship with Congress, which has the power to essentially veto or alter any local laws. Its population is larger than that of Wyoming or Vermont and its estimated 712,000 residents pay federal taxes, vote for president, and serve in the armed forces, but they have no voting representation in Congress.