U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Wednesday pledged his support for the D.C. voting rights bill and promised to schedule floor time for the legislation, assuming it emerges from committee.
Following a meeting in Reid’s office, the Nevada Democrat joined Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and much of the D.C. Council for a news conference at the U.S. Capitol.
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The voting rights measure is now before the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which Lieberman chairs, and a vote is scheduled for Wednesday to move it to the floor. The bill, which has already won approval from the U.S. House, would expand the House by two seats, one for the District and the other for Utah.
“Moving the ball down the court means getting it out of committee and scheduling time on the floor, and I intend to do that,” Reid said.
Once on the floor, the measure faces a potential Republican filibuster — a maneuver that can only be stopped with 60 votes.
The legislation is co-sponsored by the two Republican senators from Utah, Orrin Hatch and Robert Bennett.
Lieberman said he is optimistic the legislation will come out of his committee “with bipartisan support,” which supporters of the momentum can take to the chamber floor.
Reid said he hasn’t started counting votes yet.
“We have our work ahead of us because we need 60 votes, and I don’t believe we have them right now,” Lieberman said. “But we’re in reach.”
Republican critics argue the measure is unconstitutional: The House is to comprise representatives from “the several states,” they say, and the District is not a state.
President Bush has threatened a veto.
“For constitutional, moral and other reasons, we deserve a vote, and we deserve a vote in Congress today,” Fenty said.
