Nearly an hour and 20 minutes into Cory Booker’s town hall on Tuesday in Des Moines, the New Jersey senator and Democratic presidential candidate faced a question from an Iowan wearing a pin that said “51 now” on it. The woman introduced herself as Tamyra Harrison, the founder and director of Iowans for D.C. Statehood.

“I am blown away. I met with the mayor of D.C. last week. There’s a group of Iowans for D.C. statehood?” Booker asked. “That is really wonderful. As a guy that was born in Washington, D.C., I fully support D.C. statehood.”

Harrison responded by thanking him for his support, and asking, “Why is this not a bigger deal? Why is this not a more important issue when we’re talking about the equal rights of 713,000 Americans that are disenfranchised from the system and not sharing the same rights as every other American?”

Booker isn’t the first presidential candidate that Harrison has questioned about D.C. statehood. She’s spoken with quite a few, and is scheduled to speak with more. Indeed, she plans to meet with South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, another contender for the Democratic nomination, later today.

“We have a unique role and responsibility in Iowa to vet future candidates, and we have unbelievable access to those candidates,” Harrison tells DCist about her state, which has the first presidential caucus and thus an outsized impact in elections. “In a lot of cases, they’ve been surprised to hear the question [about D.C. statehood], which is something we need to fix … It’s something that should be a big issue, if not an embarrassment that this is still happening in our country.”

Harrison founded Iowans for D.C. Statehood in 2015, after meeting with D.C. Shadow Senator Paul Strauss in the Hawkeye State and learning that D.C., despite having a larger population than two U.S. states, lacks a full vote in the House of Representatives and has no representation in the Senate. The group made it a priority to get support for statehood in the Iowa Democratic party platform.

Since the 2016 election, Harrison has “more time to dedicate to this, and it perfectly lined up with this momentum we’re now seeing in Washington. [D.C. statehood is] being brought up more and more.”

Indeed, the House of Representatives in March voted for the first time to endorse the notion of making D.C. the 51st state, a bill that would grant D.C. statehood has a historic number of cosponsors in the House and Senate, and, as evidenced by Booker, the slate of top-tier Democratic candidates are all outspoken about their support of statehood. This week, 20 state attorneys general came out in favor of statehood as well (including Iowa AG Tom Miller).

Harrison says that Iowans for D.C. Statehood has more than 1,000 people signed up as supporters, and the group has dozens of events lined up, including speaking engagements, “because education is a big part of what we do.” The group will have a presence at Ragbrai, a huge bicycling event in Iowa that involves riding across the state. “We’re putting together a team riding for representation,” she says. “We’re hoping to get some significant people riding with us, and extend an invite to all the people in D.C.”

Iowans for D.C. Statehood is also circulating a petition calling on the Iowa state legislature to pass a measure in support of statehood, and on members of the Iowa delegation to U.S. Congress to support HR 51, the legislation that would make the District a state. Already, two members of the four person-strong House delegation—David Loebsack and Abby Finkenauer—have signed on as co-sponsors. Both of them, like all of the prominent statehood supporters, are Democrats.

As Booker told Harrison at the town hall, “what’s holding us back, unfortunately, is the majority has the rights over the minority in this case. We’ve gotta convince the legislature to pass D.C. statehood, and it’s gonna be hard to do. … The Republicans in the Senate would think to [themselves], ‘Wait, a minute, I’m gonna give two more Democratic senators to this city?’ … We’ve gotta figure out a strategy to get through that. It’s something I was talking directly with the mayor [about] at a new wonderful restaurant in Anacostia.”

But Harrison, herself a Democrat and the former executive director of the Polk County Democrats, thinks that the issue goes beyond party lines: “If the people of D.C. at this time were mostly Republican registered voters, I would still be fighting as hard as I am fighting right now for their rights, because it’s the right thing to do.”

Previously:
D.C. Shadow Delegation Is In Iowa Pushing For Statehood