Good news! Efforts to give DC a vote in the House of Representatives are showing momentum. The District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2007, now H.R. 1433, is going to have a number of hearings this week in the House.

The first one is March 13th in the Oversight and Government Reform committee, followed by a hearing the next day in the Judiciary Committee. The details are as follows:

DC Voting Rights Act Mark Up
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee

Date: Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Location: 2154 Rayburn House Office Building
Time: 10:00 AM

Judiciary Committee on DC House Voting Rights Act

Date: Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Location: 2141 Rayburn House Office Building
Time: 10:00 AM

If you can make either of these hearings, please find me and say hello.

Mary Beth Sheridan at the Post writes an article today about how, although the cause now has momentum, there seems to be a lack of intense in-the-streets interest in the cause.

Movement for Voting Rights Gains Ground, Loses Interest

She lays out a number of reasons why this is the case, from the fact that we have a powerful delegate in the House to how expanded home rule has toned down the sense of subjugation when a few white guys in Congress really did rule over the District. Remember, we didn’t even have an elected mayor or city council, or a delegate in the House until the 70’s. So the struggles for statehood were much more intense that they are now.

The point I liked the best was made by Mike Beard, an activist who was involved in the fight in the 70’s. He said the movement this time is:

“much more politically astute than we were in those days,”

I think that’s true. We have a Delegate who knows Capitol Hill, we have direct lobbying, issue advertising, and grassroots pressure on members. It’s no longer just throwing tea bags in the Potomac (or starting Olympic teams) and expecting change. This time we’re playing the “Washington game”, and it’s showing results.

Let’s show everyone that there is grassroots activist support out there by marching on April 16th. Go to http://www.votingrightsmarch.org to find out more and to RSVP.

So the House gave the chamber’s delegates (Distirct of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa) the right yesterday to vote on amendments to bills on the House floor, a privilege that really only symbolic. This was also the case for a few years during the time Democrats controlled the House when President Clinton was in office - but the GOP majority took it away in 1995.
While I’m sure they meant well, I think this was handled poorly as it was rammed through Congress in a very partisan way, and will likely cost us some bi-partisan of the bill that really matters — H.R. 328.

Also, this delegate vote in the Committee of the Whole business is going to confuse the issue among Members of Congress who don’t really focus on such matters. I can already hear some of them saying “Didn’t we already to that?” when we ask for a DC Congressional vote later this session.

According to the Post, Delegate Norton was also not happy about the way this went down:

“This debate is extremely heartbreaking for me,” Norton said in an impassioned floor speech, after Republicans assailed the rule change. She questioned why lawmakers were arguing about the constitutionality of the limited measure, when the courts had upheld it in the 1990s. She said Congress should instead be considering the broader bill, which supporters call their best hope in years of getting the District a full vote in the House.

Also, Gary Imhoff at DC Watch had this to say in his “themail” newsletter:

Although the bill to give the DC voting status in the House along with giving Utah a new Congressional district (HR 328) had bipartisan support and would probably pass this year, today the Democratic majority again revised the House rules to give Committee of the Whole voting rights to all five nonvoting delegates. This move imperils, and may doom, bipartisan support for HR 328, and it guarantees that the next time Republicans have a majority in the House they will strip Committee of the Whole voting rights from the DC delegate along with the other four delegates.

What we really need is Nancy Pelosi (and the rest of the Democratic Leadership) to commit to bringing the DC Voting Rights bill (H.R. 328) to the floor, so it the mark-up committee process can begin. You can help make this happen by calling her office at: (202) 225-0100 or contacting her online by clicking here: http://speaker.house.gov/contact/

Here’s a link to the full Post Article:

Delegates Gain Limited Voting Rights
Norton Pushes to Equalize District’s Footing With That of State Representatives

I meant to write about this sooner, but our Mayor stood up for DC today by refusing to sit with the First Lady (as is tradition) during tonight’s state of the union address. Here’s the Post article about it:

Fenty Won’t Sit With Laura Bush At Speech

Instead, he’ll be a guest of Speaker Pelosi. I hope Fenty uses the face time with Pelosi to get her stop dicking us all around and schedule a vote on the DC Voting Rights bill (H.R. 328) and stop just paying it lip service. Our lack of representation is now the DEMOCRAT’S problem, I really hope they “walk the walk” on this one.

The 100 hours are over. It’s time, in the words of Larry the Cable Guy, to ‘Get ‘R Done!”

Update: Nikolas Schiller sent along a clip of the video from Fox 5 news, you have to to see it for yourself!

So there was a press conference in the Wilson Building today about DC’s efforts to secure Congressional voting rights and plan for a lobby day and march. I applaud the effort, but I don’t think everyone had their ducks in a row before going to the media. They (the media) love to pounce on any fractures amongst elected officials, as shown in this Washington Post piece:

“[A]t the news conference, it was clear [Fenty] had not coordinated his plans with the city’s long-serving congressional representative, and the tension between them was evident. Norton told reporters she had not even been informed of the April march until she arrived at the news conference. “

Fenty also announced plans for a lobby day, but Norton didn’t really have his back on that:

“A zillion groups come up to lobby,” she said. The bill “will get attention from Congress when they see those citizens” in the street.

I don’t see why we can’t do both. What I’m focused on is getting contacts into Capitol Hill office from their constituents on this bill. Lobby days and marches are good - but a Representative will more likely be moved by a few letters from his or her district on the issue. (Don’t me wrong; when it comes to marches I’m like the Doobie Brothers!)

My other gripe is a little personal - nobody told me (or other members of the Shadow Delegation) about this event! I found about it about 10 minutes before it started, so I hustled over to see what was going on.

Now, I don’t have a big ego and nor do I expect to be invited to all official city events, to be asked to make remarks, or even to be recognized from the crowd. However, this is the one issue that the voters tasked me to work on — so I was a little upset that I didn’t get a little more of a heads up from the mayor’s people. Maybe next time

On a positive note, I had a nice conversation with Hilary Shelton from the NAACP after the event. I told him that Evan Bayh’s office had told me that the Indiana chapter of the NAACP had come to their office and mentioned that the Davis bill was a priority for them during the last Congress, and I thanked him for making that so. I also told him that that sort of homegrown contact was exactly what we needed to get Members of Congress to support the DC Voting Rights bill. He agreed and told me to contact him if we need to push anyone on the Hill.

At the end of the day, this is all internal DC city government bunk that nobody besides guys like Mark Plotkin really care about. Let’s keep our eyes on the goal line and keep pushing to get voting rights in the House in the short term — and statehood in the long term!

Fenty, Norton Clash Over D.C. Vote in House