Timeline on 209 years of the District of Columbia's efforts to restore self-government
1801 Congress passes the Organic Act of 1801. D.C. residents lose their national representation and local self-determination.
1846 Congress, the Virginia Legislature and the City of Alexandria approve the retrocession of what is now Arlington County and the City of Alexandria back to Virginia, decreasing the size of D.C. by about 40%.
1850 Congress ends the slave trade in D.C.
1862 Congress abolishes slavery in D.C. (nine months before the Emancipation Proclamation is issued) and establishes a school system for black residents.
1871 Congress creates the Territory of the District of Columbia with Senate confirmation of a Presidentially appointed Governor, upper house of the legislature, and Board of Public Works and a popularly elected 22 seat lower House of Delegates and nonvoting Delegate to the House of Representatives.
1874 Congress removes all elected officials, including the nonvoting Delegate in Congress, and temporarily replaces the territorial government with three Presidentially appointed commissioners.
1878 Congress passes a new Organic Act making the three commissioner form of government permanent.
1888 Conservative newspaperman Theodore Noyes of the Washington Star launches campaign for congressional representation and strongly opposes real democracy. Noyes writes, "National representation for the capital community is not in the slightest degree inconsistent with control of the capital by the nation through Congress." Sen. Henry Blair of New Hampshire introduces the first resolution for a constitutional amendment for D.C. voting rights in Congress and in the Electoral College for D.C. which fails to pass.
1899 A political scientist describes the Board of Trade—which supports a congressional vote only—as providing DC with the ideal form of local government through a "representative aristocracy."
1919 The Board of Trade and the Chamber of Commerce advocate congressional representation and oppose home rule. Labor unions urge elected officials.
1935 The California legislature passes a resolution recommending Congress amend the Constitution to grant D.C. representation in Congress.
1940 Congress allows District residents the same access to federal courts as that available to residents of the states.
1943 Board of Trade appears before Senate Committee to support representation in Congress but opposes local self-government.
1960's Segregationist Rep. John McMillan favors a DC vote for president and vice president, says a struggle for home rule will cripple the national vote. McMillan thinks the national vote should "satisfy" DC residents "at least for a while."
1961 23rd Amendment to the Constitution that gives D.C. a vote in the electoral college is ratified.
1964 D.C. voters vote for the first time in U.S. Presidential Elections.
1968 Congress authorizes an elected school board and D.C. residents vote for school board for first time. This is their first vote for any local body since 1874 when the territorial government was dissolved.
1970 Congress passes a law authorizing a nonvoting delegate in House of Representatives for D.C. (the first since D.C. lost its nonvoting delegate in 1874).
1971 D.C. voters elect a nonvoting Delegate to House of Representatives.
1973 Congress passes the D.C. Home Rule Act providing for an elected Mayor, Council and Advisory Neighborhood Commissions and delegating certain powers to the new government, subject to Congressional oversight and veto.
1974 D.C. voters elect a Mayor and Council.
1978 Congress passes a Constitutional amendment to give D.C. full Congressional voting rights (two Senators and Representatives).
1979 An initiative to hold a Statehood Constitutional Convention is filed. Congress rejects the Council's bill on the location of chanceries.
1980 D.C. voters overwhelmingly approve initiative for Statehood Constitutional Convention.
1981 Voters elect delegates to the Statehood Constitutional Convention. Congress rejects the Council's revision to the D.C. sexual assault law.
1982 Voters approve a statehood constitution, including the election of Statehood Senators and a Representative to promote statehood (the latter not implemented until 1990).
1983 A petition for statehood, including the constitution ratified by the voters, is sent to Congress.
1985 The voting rights amendment dies after only 16 states ratify it.
1990 D.C. residents elect their first statehood senators and representative. The positions were first authorized in 1982 when the statehood constitution was approved.
1992 The House grants a limited vote in the Committee of the Whole to the D.C. Delegate.
1993 The House District Committee favorably reports a statehood bill out of committee; in first full House vote on statehood ever, statehood fails (153 to 277).
1995 The D.C. Delegate's vote in the House Committee of the Whole is revoked. Congress authorizes the President to appoint the first Control Board which replaces the elected school board with an appointed board. The law also create the Office of Chief Financial Officer for D.C.
1997 Congress strengthens the Control Board by giving it total control over D.C.'s courts, prisons and pension liabilities (much of that unfunded liabilities from the pre-Home Rule era), increased control over Medicaid and removes various D.C. agencies from under the Mayor's authority.
2001 The Control Board officially suspends its operations and transfers home rule authority back to the elected Mayor and Council (although upon certain conditions occurring, the Control Board can be reactivated in the future).
2003 The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issues a report finding that the United States Government violates District residents' rights by denying them participation in their federal legislature.
2005 The Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) passes a resolution calling on Congress to support equal voting rights legislation for D.C. residents.
2006 The UN Human Rights Committee finds that D.C.’s lack of voting representation in Congress violated the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a treaty ratified by more than 160 countries, including the United States.
2007 The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Office of Democratic Institution and Human Rights finds D.C.'s lack of equal congressional voting rights inconsistent with United States' human rights commitments under the OSCE Charter.
2009 Congress considers granting D.C. a vote in the House of Representatives; extraneous gun rights amendments threaten to kill the bill.
“It is time D.C. residents had statehood and the same rights as all Americans.”
—Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)