Harry Jaffe: Clock is ticking on D.C. voting rights bill
By: Harry Jaffe
Examiner Columnist
October 25, 2009
Starting today the District of Columbia has 67 days left for its best chance to get full voting rights in the House of Representatives.
My arithmetic is simple: there are six more days this month, 30 in November and 31 in December until the end of the year.
My reasoning comes from D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who has devoted much of her time and political capital to gaining passage of the D.C. Voting Rights Bill. She tells me the odds of gaining a vote on the House floor drop precipitously in 2010.
"There are legal technicalities involved," she says, "and the benefits to Utah might not be as great next year, once the census is complete."
You might recall that the deal struck to give D.C. a vote was balanced by adding a seat in Utah; presumably D.C. would elect a Democrat and Utah a Republican. If Utah no longer needs a seat, Republicans might flee the deal.
So it seems to be now or never for the D.C. voting rights bill — or at least now or much later on.
"The real question now is political will," Norton says. "It's now in the leaders' hands. They have overwhelming support in their caucuses. And they have a fair number of Republicans."
With Congress and the White House in Democratic hands, it would seem to be as easy to pass a voting rights bill as it is to get Dick Cheney to diss President Obama.
Simple justice is on our side. As Rep. Steny Hoyer said last week, Americans have spilled their blood so "the people of Baghdad can elect members of their parliament" but residents of the U.S. capital still do not have a House member who can cast a vote on the floor. "It is about participation," Hoyer said. "It is about respect."
It is about cash, too. We Washingtonians paid more than $1 billion in federal taxes last year, yet we have no say in how it's spent.
So what's the problem?
Not the White House. President George W. Bush said he would veto a bill, because it would violate the Constitution. The Supreme Court might have to decide that. Meanwhile, the current White House resident, Mr. Obama, supports the bill.
"We have the votes in the House and the Senate," says Ilir Zherka, executive director of DC Vote. "Do the Democrats have the political will to get this done?"
Norton says she has presented House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid with many ways to avoid a poison pill amendment from gun rights activists. An amendment stripping D.C. of the right to regulate firearms doomed the last bill.
Is Norton hopeful that a bill will get through?
"Absolutely," she says. But she adds: "Without some pressure," Norton says, "nothing gets done in this place."
The pressure might have to come from D.C. residents taking to the streets, and the time might be now, before the year ends.
E-mail Harry Jaffe at hjaffe@washingtonexaminer.com.
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