The Roving Activist’s Blog

So far, so good for the DC voting rights bill. The mark-up went very well! 

From DC Vote:

Washington, DC – In a momentous vote cast this afternoon by the House Committee on Government Reform, the DC Fair and Equal House Voting Rights Act (H.R. 5388) passed by a vote of 29-4. The bill would give Washington, DC, residents a voting member in the House of Representatives for the first time ever.

“This mark-up is the crown jewel of the decade for the DC voting rights movement,” said DC Vote Executive Director Ilir Zherka. “Today we celebrate an astounding victory on a historical vote. We have been inching toward our goal of congressional voting representation for years, and the mark-up of this bill moves us miles closer to the finish line.”

Republicans and Democrats have come together on a consensus bill, H.R. 5388, the DC Fair and Equal House Voting Rights Act of 2006. Representative Tom Davis (R-VA), sponsor of the bill and the chair of the committee, marked-up the DC Voting Rights Act with the support of Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) as well as the committee’s vice chair and ranking minority member.

“The mark-up is a bright green light, empowering us to move full-speed ahead on the DC Voting Rights Act,” said Zherka. “We have our work cut out for us in the coming weeks, and we are eager to begin our work with the House Judiciary Committee.”

A high point in the committee hearing occurred when Representative Dan Burton (R-IN) expressed a change of heart after speaking with former vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp and a young African-American woman who pressed him to finish the work of the civil rights movement. Burton had voiced his opposition to the DC Voting Rights Act earlier in the committee meeting.

I’ll keep you posted… 

Who knows? Washington, DC just may get some voting rights in the not-too-distant future. On May 11th, a bill crafted by Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), and Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) called the DC Fair and Equal House Voting Rights Act of 2006 was introduced into the House of Representatives. This bill would give the District a vote in the House, and would permanently increase the number of members in the House of Representatives from 435 to 437 and adding a temporary at-large seat in Utah.

Utah, which just missed getting an extra House seat after the 2000 census, currently has three House seats held by two Republicans and one Democrat. To avoid an immediate shift in this balance, the fourth seat under the Davis-Norton bill would be at-large, representing the entire state, until the 2012 election. Davis’ office said this was a common procedure in the 19th century, when the House expanded as the nation’s population grew.

Norton, who can cast votes in committees and participate in House floor debate but can’t vote on the floor, said her ultimate goal is to achieve voting rights in both the House and the Senate, but acknowledges she doesn’t have enough support for that now.

Here is a bit of history: Congress in 1801, shortly after moving to Washington, took away the voting rights of D.C. residents, who until then had voted for Virginia or Maryland lawmakers. The 23rd Amendment, ratified in 1961, gave D.C. residents the right to vote in presidential elections, and the city of 537,000 has been allowed to elect its own leaders since 1973.

The bill has to clear a number of hurdles on its way to becoming law. It would have to get through the Government Reform Committee, of which Rep. Davis is a member. There would have to be more bipartisan support than there is now. The majority of Republicans are against this bill, and some are conducting an underground effort to quash it. Some Democrats are scared of the fact that it would give an extra seat to Utah, a staunchly Republican state. Of course, President Bush will have to sign it, and that remains to be seen. I will keep you updated on how this goes.

On Saturday, my sister and her kids came through town from North Carolina on their way to Pennsylvania. I met them at Union Station, and we walked over to the Capitol, which is a few blocks away.

My niece, who is 16, began asking questions about life in the District, and among other things, I began talking about voting rights and representation, and how those of us in Washington, DC have no voting rights in Congress. She said that her teacher was telling her class about that, but it was clear from her statements that she really didn’t understand. She thought that people in the District couldn’t vote at all.

I explained to her that we can vote for all public offices, but the representative from the District can’t vote. We have one representative, but no senator, and that person cannot exercise a vote in Congress. Our representative can sit on a committee, or a subcommittee, but has no vote. She cannot vote on legislation that she is in favor of, or that might affect the District. Therefore, the citizens of the District have no representation, but we do pay taxes. To me, that is really unfair!

Now, my niece is a smart young lady, but she still didn’t get why this would seem unfair. I then explained that her representatives from North Carolina have the right to vote on any legislaton that they are for, or against, and any legislation that may affect North Carolina.

Since she still didn’t see why that would seem unfair, I explained it to her in terms of MiCASSA. My niece is well aware of MiCASSA, that it is a piece of legislation written by ADAPT, that is sitting in Congress as we speak. She knows of the work that ADAPT has done regarding the bill. She also knows that if passed, MiCASSA will give people with disabilities and seniors who are living in nursing homes the right to live in the community with the assistance they need, and that MiCASSA will save states millions of dollars. Of course, my niece is all for MiCASSA! “Okay”, I said. “When MiCASSA comes up for a vote in Congress and the Senate, your Reps, who are for MiCASSA, will be able to vote for it, but my Rep, who is also for MiCASSA, won’t be able to, because she has no vote”. Immediately, understanding crept on to her face. “That’s messed up, that’s not fair”, she said. I knew that she finally got it.

I then started telling her about how every law that we pass must be approved by Congress, and how other senators and congressfolks can write laws that affect us, though they don’t live here. However, she feels that since Washington, DC, is where everything “goes down”, that it’s okay for someone living in Texas to try to make decisions for us in the District. I asked how she would like it if someone from Colorado or California made laws for her state when they didn’t live there. She said that she wouldn’t like it, but she still felt that DC is different, so it was okay.

Oh well, I see that I’ll just have to keep educating her, but I suspect that unless she comes to live in the District, which is highly unlikely, she simply won’t see the unfairness of this. Still, I can try…