Swearing an Oath to the U.S. Constitution

By: Miriam Edelman

As the U.S. just had off-year elections in November 2025, election winners are taking office. When many people become government officials, they swear an oath to the U.S. Constitution. This post follows up on DCNOW’s blog piece, entitled “DCNOW Congratulates Women Who Made History in Recent Elections.”

One of the winners in the earlier article is Kaoly Her, the first female Mayor of St. Paul, Minnesota. At Her’s inaugural swearing-in ceremony on January 2, 2026, she swore “to support the Constitutions of the United States and the state of Minnesota.”

Likewise, Michelle Wu, who made in history in 2021 when she became the first woman and first person of color to be elected Mayor of Boston, Massachusetts, took a similar oath during her inauguration on January 5, 2026. As she began her second term as Mayor, she swore “to support the Constitution of the United States.”

Let’s honor the U.S. Constitution by finally granting statehood to D.C. As D.C.’s Mayor Muriel Bowser testified to the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on September 19, 2019:

“Does Congress truly believe that the promise of democracy extends to all Americans citizens as outlined in the U.S. Constitution: women and men, the North and the South, Blacks and Whites, Latinos and Asians, born here and from other lands, Democrats and Republicans? Will Congress rise above temporal partisan considerations and act like statesmen and women to grant us the statehood we overwhelmingly endorsed at the polls?”