Gun amendment clouds voting rights bill
By: Michael Neibauer
Examiner Staff Writer
March 3, 2009
Supporters of the D.C. voting rights bill under consideration in the House were forced to regroup Tuesday in the face of a potentially debilitating amendment tied to the District’s gun laws.
D.C. Council members, meanwhile, condemned language now attached to the Senate version of the voting rights act that strips the District of its gun laws, and castigated the Republican senator who offered it.
“This was one of the more offensive and mean-spirited acts that I’ve seen in a long time,” D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray said of Nevada Sen. John Ensign, whose amendment threatens to negate most of the District’s gun laws that were installed after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the city’s handgun ban last summer.
House Republicans also hope to amend that chamber’s version of the voting rights bill with gun-friendly language, just as the Senate did last week. Twenty-one Senate Democrats voted for Ensign’s amendment, including Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
The House this week is slated to consider the voting rights bill, which would expand the House by two seats, one for Democratic-dominated D.C. and the other for Republican-leaning Utah. Democratic leaders are looking for a way to stop Republicans from attaching the gun language, which could ultimately sink the bill.
A House Rules Committee hearing on the measure was abruptly canceled Tuesday evening. D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat, described the delay in a statement as “entirely necessary in order to do the complicated work in both strategy and contacting Democratic members.”
The National Rifle Association is vigorously backing the Ensign amendment, putting moderate and conservative Democrats in a difficult spot. A similar measure won House approval last fall, just before the November election, with the support of 80 Democrats.
As the District waits for its day on the House floor, the D.C. Council took Ensign to task and adopted a resolution urging Congress not to adopt the amendment.
Nevada has the fourth-highest unemployment rate in the country and the highest rate of foreclosure, said at-large Councilman David Catania. Ensign’s priorities are out of whack, he said.
“There are bigger issues facing this country other than turning Congress into a city council on gun rights,” Catania said.
Ensign’s spokesman declined to comment.
