D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D, on Tuesday reintroduced the D.C. House Voting Rights Act as her first act in the new Congress. In the Senate, Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, offered an identical measure.
The bill, which has been through the legislative hopper numerous times before, would add two permanent seats to the U.S. House of Representatives — one for Democratic-stronghold D.C. and another for Republican-leaning Utah. If passed, the House would have 437 seats.
“The righting of this historic wrong is long overdue,” Lieberman said in a statement. “The people of the District have been the direct target of a terrorist attack but they have no vote on how the federal government provides for their homeland security.”
The same bill won easy approval in the House in 2007, but was shut down in the Senate. Proponents, now backed by a stronger Democratic majority in both houses, believe they have enough votes to fend off a Senate filibuster. President-elect Barack Obama has said in the past that he supports D.C. voting rights.
“We know from national polls that our bill has broad bipartisan support from the American people, and we have every reason to believe that we will have the support this year of both houses of Congress and the new president,” Norton said in a statement.
