A coalition of D.C. leaders led by District Mayor Adrian Fenty will embark on a renewed push to draw attention to the District’s disenfranchisement and lobby Congress in favor of a voting rights bill now before the House.
“We think we have put together a campaign over the next couple of weeks and months that will bring enough energy, enough attention and a sense of urgency to tell the United States Congress that we want this bill passed and we want it passed right away,” Fenty said Friday during a news conference at the John A. Wilson building.
The effort, coordinated by DC Vote, will feature a Feb. 15 lobby day, an April 16 march on the Capitol and a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signed by 30 local and national organizations, calling for an immediate vote.
“I will regard this as the beginning of a new stage in our struggle,” D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton said.
The February event may include a small rally before advocates hit the House offices, but DC Vote is still working on the permitting. The reintroduced legislation, sponsored by Norton and U.S. Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., would expand the House by two seats, with one going to the District and the other to Utah. Davis said Friday Republican support on the Hill is “holding strong.” The bill survived a House committee vote last year but never reached the floor.
“It’s way past time,” said Ilir Zherka, DC Vote executive director. “This feels like a marathon run through the ages.”
Groups backing the effort include the D.C. Chamber of Commerce, Common Cause, League of Women Voters, D.C. Republican Committee, People for the American Way, National League of Cities, the National Urban League and the NAACP, which is slated to move its national headquarters to Southeast.
“The last thing we want to do is bring our staff into a city that has no representation on Capitol Hill,” said Hilary Shelton, director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s Washington bureau.
