Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said on April 30 that he doesn’t support legislation that would make Washington, D.C., the nation’s 51st state, dealing a blow to the initiative, which Republicans have panned as an unconstitutional power grab. “If Congress wants to make D.C. a state, it should propose a constitutional amendment. It should propose a constitutional amendment and let the people of America vote,” Manchin told West Virginia’s MetroNews in an April 30 radio interview. Last week, the House passed H.R. 51—the Washington, D.C. Admission Act—in a vote of 216–208, backing congressional Democrats’ view of “no taxation without representation.” But Republicans see the legislation as an unconstitutional ploy to add two more Democratic senators. The measure, which is backed by President Joe Biden, faces daunting odds in the evenly split Senate, as the legislative filibuster would require buy-in from at least 10 Republican senators, assuming all Democrats vote for it. …