A new organization in the District is working to educate policymakers and the business community on what it would mean to be the 51st state.

Federal City Council, a civic organization, launched their nonprofit, Statehood Research DC, over the weekend as the U.S House plans to hold a hearing on D.C. statehood Monday. The nonprofit’s mission is to conduct research and educate policymakers and business owners about what changes statehood would bring to the District.

“There’s a lot of interest in the business community for how [statehood] would work and how it’s going to affect the finances and the economy of the region,” Gregory McCarthy, chair of the nonprofit and a 30-plus year resident of the District, told WAMU/DCist.

In the past few months, McCarthy says, there have been two instances when the lack of statehood have been detrimental to the city’s fiscal and economic prospects. The first was when the District was initially cut out of $755 million in federal COVID-19 relief stimulus money because of its designation as a territory. That matter was later resolved. And the second was during the attack on the U.S. Capitol in early January. “The mayor’s ability to protect the city and the federal Capital was shortchanged because she didn’t have the power of being a governor,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy says that while recent arguments for statehood have centered around social justice, “as business leaders we think it’s incumbent upon us to step up and now join the justice community in saying it’s about time.”

On Friday, the organization published their first research project by George Derek Musgrove and Chris Myers Asch, two of the city’s leading historians and co-authors of Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation’s Capital. The report looks at the intersection of the challenge of DC statehood and voting rights for Black people and all women.

It had three major takeaways: The first was that the country’s founding fathers never “reconciled the tension between the revolutionary imperative for ‘no taxation without representation’ and the federal government’s need for ‘exclusive legislation’ regarding the seat of government.” The second finding is that following reconstruction in 1874 the District’s Black and white residents lost all voting rights. The report says this action “played a significant role in defeating all attempts to win home rule and congressional representation as segregationists successfully derailed efforts to return suffrage to District residents.” Finally, throughout the 1960s and 70s, the report says, activists managed to win a series of victories:  gaining the right to vote in presidential elections, a local government, and a non-voting member of the U.S. House.

Statehood Research DC said in a statement that they hope the report highlights these points during Monday’s House hearing — “especially the role of race in depriving DC residents of local legislative independence and voting representation in Congress.”

The organization also hopes to conduct other research around the wide array of legal issues related to statehood, such as the criminal justice system and economic competitiveness in the region.

D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton reintroduced the statehood bill in January with 202 cosponsors. Later that month a similar measure was introduced in the U.S. Senate with a record number of cosponsors, 38, since it was first introduced in 2013. Last week, President Joe Biden confirmed his support for statehood.

Norton will be holding a press conference Monday morning prior to the U.S. House hearing.

“I am confident Monday will make the case for granting the residents of the nation’s capital, who have worked for 220 years for this imprimatur, all the elements and the full meaning of citizenship. Statehood for the District of Columbia will give real meaning to the nation’s oldest slogan: ‘no taxation without representation.’ Statehood is about giving the people of the District of Columbia a voice and a say in their own government,” Norton wrote in a statement.