The U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs will be holding a hearing on the DC Voting Rights Act on Tuesday May 15th.  The hearing starts at 10:00 in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 342. More information can be found here.

Senator Lieberman, a friend of the District as well as the primary Senate sponsor, will be chairing the hearing.  It should be interesting as we’ll see the level of support the bill has. On the Democrat’s side we have people like Lieberman, Obama, and Landrieu who are co-sponsors. Senator Tester is supportive (or at least that is what he told me when I talked to him at a YearlyKos fundraiser). The other Dems on the committee should line up in support of this bill…so hopefully that will not be a problem.

On the Republican side, there are guys like Senators Stevens and Pete Domineci who will never support this bill . What will be key is to see where moderate GOP Senators Collins, Warner, and Coleman come down on the bill. Also, Trent Lott has told people like Jack Kemp that he’s a supporter…we’ll see at the hearing how much that’s actually true. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Lott could mend a lot of fences if he were to take a leadership role on this bill.

I’m planning on being at the hearing. Hope to see you there.

After clearing the House two weeks ago by a vote of 244 to 177, the DC Voting Rights Act will be introduced in the Senate today by Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT). The fact that Senator Hatch is on board as a co-sponsor is great news, as he always was a bit of an unknown and could have single-handedly killed the bill in the Senate.

To keep the momentum going, we need to make sure that Senators here in Washington are hearing from their constituents back home about DC voting rights. The web site FreeAndEqualDC.com has been updated to now send messages in support of this bill to the U.S. Senate. If you have not yet done so, please take a minute a send a message to your friends, family, and co-workers urging them to take action at: http://www.freeandequaldc.com

It’s great that things are moving forward and I’ll be in touch soon with more ways on how you can help get this through the Senate. Remember, there are now less than 100 people standing in the way of DC voting rights - together we can make it happen!

Also, The Hill published my letter:

http://thehill.com/letters/d.c.-voting-rights-bill-isnt-willful-constitution-breach-2007-04-30.html

I wrote this in response to a letter that was recently submitted to the Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill from a reader in Pennsylvania. You can read the original letter here. Hopefully it will be published next week.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Dear Editor,

John Salsgiver should read both the “blood-bought Constitution” he references and the actual text of the DC Voting Rights Act before firing off letters such as “We the Sheeple” to The Hill. (Regarding
article, “House Dems secure win on D.C. voting rights bill,” April 20.)

The Constitution grants Congress authority over the District “in all Cases whatsoever”. Constitutional scholars from both sides of the aisle have testified before Congress that this clause gives Congress
the authority to grant the District a vote in the House of Representatives. Whether or not this is Constitutional is some the courts will ultimately need to decide, but his claim that the Constitution was “willfully violated” is quite a stretch.

I also take issue with Mr. Salsgiver claims that it won’t be long before demands are made for two voting Senators for the District – and his questioning if we can “smell the desperation” of Democrats looking to get three extra electoral votes from this bill.

I’m not sure what Mr. Salsgiver smells, but I don’t think that it’s desperation for electoral votes. I would remind Mr. Salsgiver that the 23rd amendment to the Constitution granted the District of Columbia the three electoral votes he fears so much back in 1961.

I would also remind the reader that the DC Voting Rights Act would grant an additional congressional district — and thus another electoral vote — to the state of Utah. It doesn’t take Charlie Cook
to figure out that Utah will likely be a Republican state in 2008. This is hardly the sort of legislation that would be passed by desperate Democrats.

The high of the DC Voting Rights Act passing in the House has worn off and the reality of the uphill battle looming in the Senate has sunk in amongst the supporters of DC Voting Rights. And the fact that Joe Lieberman may not be in charge of the bill in the Senate is another reason some are nervous about the future.

What do we do now? Simple. We step up our game.

This fight reminds me when I was working on a campaign to stop nuclear waste from being dumped at Yucca Mountain in 2002. Running the standard playbook, we targeted the usual suspects with “the world is going to end” environmental messaging. The results were so-so. However, when we reached out to conservative/right-leaning lists with a “states rights” message (instead of the environment) the action rate was several times higher.

If this bill is going to pass the Senate, we’re going to need to reach out beyond the “latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading” liberal civil-rights crowd that has carried the water on this bill to date, and also reach out to the conservative media and interest groups and dangle the prospects of another Republican House seat (and, yes, electoral vote) for Utah in front of them.

It’s a basic segmentation of audience and message . . . not rocket science.

We are also going to need to:

• Put grassroots and grasstops pressure on Bennett and Hatch from Utah citizens
• Recruit, educate, and mobilize citizens in the states of the Senators whose committee(s) have jurisdiction over the bill
• Figure out which Senators are on the fence and what will move them

Yes, it’s going to be fight. But I do think it’s one we can win.

Do you have ideas? Please comment using the links below, I’d love to hear from you.

Today the U.S. House passed the DC Voting Rights Act. It was an historic day as it was the first time since the 70’s that the House has passed anything related to giving the District a full vote in the House. The bill passed 241 to 177, and the companion bill that would fund the new seat passed by a vote of 216 to 203.

I have to give credit to DC Vote, Jake Kemp, Congresswoman Norton, Congressman Tom Davis, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Together they the made sure this bill was re-introduced in this Congress, overcame the numerous hurdles thrown at it, and ensured it passed the necessary committees and the full House chamber.

I echo the statement made by Mayor Fenty:

“This is a great and historic day for the residents of the District of Columbia. I look forward to the continued success of the D.C. Voting Rights Act and urge the Senate to take up this important legislation immediately.”

The next steps are getting it through the Senate and, of course, getting the President to sign it. But for now the victory is the House is something to savor.