Great day on the Hill as the DC Voting Rights Act (H.R. 1433) was passed out of the House Oversight and Reform Committee today by a vote of 24-5.

There were a number of amendments that were offered - the most entertaining one was by Representative Lynn Westmoreland. He attempted to amend the bill to read that if the partisan balance of a Democratic member from the District and a Republican member from Utah did not materialize, then the bill was null and void. Chairman Waxman wisely pointed out the United States Congress should not be in any position to tell people who what party they need to vote for. (Of course that amendement went nowhere, and I think Representative Westmoreland was just trying to make some sort of point )

Tomorrow there is a hearing in the Judiciary Committee at 10:00am in 2141 Rayburn. And then a mark-up on Thursday. It’s going to be an historic week!

Additional Reading:

Chairman Waxman’s Opening Statement

Opening Statement of Ranking Member Tom Davis

Washington Post Article:
D.C. Could Get First Full Vote in House

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.

An old boss of mine in the non-profit world used to use the expression a lot. I think it’s a very fitting expression for the coordinated efforts of the DC voting rights community today. My hat is off to DC Vote for coordinating the whole event, which I thought was great. I’ve worked on these “lobby days” before for other groups and when things go as smoothly as they did today, it’s because someone was sweating the details…and DC Vote did just that.

It was a great sight this morning as hundreds of people assembled in the Cannon Caucus room to hear introductory remarks from Mayor Fenty, Chairman Gray, and Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton. Dozens of people who work so hard on this issue were on Capitol Hill today lobbying in support of H.R. 328. It was cool to see the “real” Washington showing up to lobby the “official” Washington.

I captained a team of people today and we had a number of meetings with Congressional staff. We would brief them about the bill, ask if they had any questions and inquire about their boss’s stance if they knew it.
Our “asks” in these meeting were:

• Can you help get it through the Judiciary Committee?
• Would your boss like to co-sponsor the bill?

You never get firm commitments from staffers (they can’t speak for their boss if he/she hasn’t taken a stance yet) but we had a lot of positive signals in our meetings and I think we may have actually picked up a few co-sponsors today.

Overall, it was a very positive day and I think we moved the ball downfield on the issue.

Update: Here is the Post’s coverage:

Seeking A Vote On Vote For D.C.
Hundreds Gather To Persuade Lawmakers
Were you there? What was your impression of the day? Please comment below.

Conservative columninst George F. Will wrote a piece in The Washington Post today about the recent move by the House of Representatives to give all the five territorial delegates in the body voting powers in the Committee of the Whole. Here’s a link to the op-ed:

Voting Rights Chicanery

The fact that he even cares about this re-affirms my fears about what would happen after the Democrats gave the delegates’ their votes back - it’s now being spun as a partisan power grab and the District of Columbia is lumped together with places like Guam and America Samoa in our struggle for voting rights.

Mr. Will should know that the courts have struck down his arguments before. As Vince Treacy was nice enough to summarize in an email to me:

“House Republicans filed suit in U.S. District Court in 1993, citing a violation of
the Constitution. But Judge Harold H. Greene ruled in favor of Norton and
the other delegates, saying their votes posed no constitutional problems
because they were ’symbolic’ and therefore ‘meaningless.’ That decision was
upheld on appeal.“

The case was Michel v. Anderson, 817 F.Supp. 126, 141 D.D.C. 1993, affirmed
14 F.3d 623 D.C. Cir. 1994 - in case you want to review it yourself.

In his op-ed, Mr. Will also argues that:

“The 58,000 Samoans pay no federal income taxes, but their delegate will be able to participate in raising the taxes of, say, Montanans.”

That’s a bit of a stretch as the delegates can’t vote on final passage - and if their votes do make a difference, the vote can be done again without the delegates’ participation. Therefore a single vote from Guam or Puerto isn’t going to raise (or lower) taxes in the American heartland.

I do wonder what does Mr. Will thinks about the opposite of that situation. What would he say about the citizens of the District of Columbia who do pay federal taxes and are not represented with a real vote in Congress? By his own taxation/representation logic he surely can’t be in favor of that.

As I feared, this delegate vote is becoming a problem in terms of getting (and keeping) bi-partisan support for H.R. 328 - the bill that gives DC a real seat in Congress with an additional seat for Utah which was recently re-introduced by Congresswoman Norton. We need to keep focused on making sure that legislation keeps moving in this Congress. Let’s not get bogged down in this debate with the other Congressional delegates.

We deserve more as we pay Federal taxes and they don’t.

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