D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton is more bullish than ever on statehood.

“In the past three months, we’ve made more progress than we’ve made in 218 years,” Norton said on The Kojo Nnamdi Show during Friday’s Politics Hour. She has introduced a statehood bill every term since she started serving as D.C. delegate in 1991.

Backing up her contention? The record-breaking 201 sponsors and co-sponsors for the House bill to grant D.C. statehood, which would mean two senators and one representative in the House for the District’s 702,000 residents. The corresponding Senate bill has more support than ever before, too. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi—both Democratic party leaders—now vocally back statehood. Plus, a week ago, the House voted to endorse the District becoming the 51st state as part of its far-reaching voting rights and anti-corruption legislation, marking the first time in history that a Congressional chamber has voted to support D.C. statehood.

Norton said on the Kojo Show that she expects the House of Representatives to vote on the bill for statehood “either late this year or early next year.” It’ll require 218 votes to pass, and Norton says she’s focusing on educating representatives new to Capitol Hill about the disenfranchisement of Washingtonians. “Most Americans think that District residents have the same rights they have, so we are working on new members,” she said.

In an interview with DCist earlier this week, Norton noted how many Democratic presidential candidates have made statehood a part of their campaigns, to a degree far greater than she has observed in her decades of advocating for the District. All of the Democratic senators running for president—Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren—co-sponsored statehood legislation in that chamber, for instance.

But amid the growing vocal support for D.C. statehood, there’s one huge roadblock: Republicans. None have yet signed onto either the House or Senate bills, and none voted to endorse statehood last week. (Many believe that statehood for the deeply blue District would mean more Democrats on the Hill.) Without any on board, a statehood bill has no chance of passing in the GOP-led Senate. But Norton isn’t letting that stop her.

If advocates “wait until you have 60 members of the Senate”—the number necessary for a filibuster-proof majority—”nothing would happen in the House,” Norton said on the Kojo Show. “If we get through the House, it will bring tremendous pressure … You’ve gotta go one House at a time.”

She also dismissed another potential avenue for D.C. enfranchisement—retrocession, or making the District a part of Maryland. (That’s how Arlington County and Alexandria, initially part of the nation’s capital, were returned to Virginia.) “Maryland doesn’t want it, the District really doesn’t want it. In 200 years, we have really taken on a flavor of our own,” said Norton on Friday. For retrocession to work, “you’d have to convince two groups of people. Don’t make it harder than it already is.”

Previously:
Norton Introduces D.C. Statehood Bill Yet Again, This Time With Support From Speaker Pelosi
Va. Senator Mark Warner Is Sponsoring D.C. Statehood Legislation For The First Time
In Historic First, House Of Representatives Votes To Endorse D.C. Statehood