More Reaction to Senate defeat of DC Voting Bill

DC Congressional Delegate Norton and Mayor Fenty are putting on optimistic faces following the setback of the Senate bill aimed at giving City residents a single vote in the House. Their official statements are included below;





Government of the District of Columbia Executive Office of the Mayor



For Immediate Release CONTACT: Dena Iverson
September 18, 2007 202.727.6914 (office)
202.340-7834 (mobile)

Fenty Vows to Continue Fight for DC Voting Rights

Washington, DC – Mayor Adrian M. Fenty spoke at the U. S. Capitol today after supporters of the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act in the Senate failed to garner the votes necessary to end debate on the bill and allow for an up-or-down vote on its passage. The House version of the bill passed on April 19.

“For more than 200 years Washingtonians have been denied one of our most basic rights as American citizens and today the Senate failed to right this egregious wrong,” said Fenty. “I will not stop working until the residents of the District of Columbia have the same voice in the House as every other American citizen.”

As Mayor of the District of Columbia, Fenty has floor privileges in the Senate, which Fenty exercised during the debate and vote in an effort to speak to Senators and shore up support for the bill. This is the first time that a mayor has used the floor privileges to support voting rights legislation.

“Senators Lieberman and Hatch deserve great credit for all of their work on this legislation. I will continue to work closely with them to make sure the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act is passed,” said Fenty.








Web Site: URL=http://www.norton.house.gov
Norton Buoyed, Not Daunted by Today’s Close D.C. House Vote in Senate
Washington, DC-- Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton issued an optimistic statement and analysis of why she thought the D.C. House vote bill could still pass during the 110th Congress. Her statement follows:

Today the District got 57 votes with another sure vote promised if we had gotten to 59. No one who knows the lopsided, don’t-do-it-or-die pressure suffered by four Republicans who had said they would vote “Yes” can doubt that we are too close to victory to quit now. Too many have done too much to throw in the towel, with one year of this session of Congress still to go and a critical election year ahead in 2008 to work with.

The House of Representatives, which alone is affected by S. 1257, has already passed this bill with the outstanding leadership of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and Majority Leader Hoyer’s strong support and ceaseless effort produced unanimity in the Democratic Caucus. Rep. Tom Davis was indispensable to this effort. Today’s vote would not have happened at all without Majority Leader Harry Reid’s dedicated and unyielding support throughout, or without his personal efforts that produced virtual unanimity among the Democrats. We need only two Republican senators to do what eight courageously did today – Senators Bennett, Coleman, Collins, Hatch, Lugar, Snowe, Specter, and Voinovich. We need two senators to understand what “No” means on a voting bill for a majority African American district in the 21st century. Had the bill moved forward we would have had more battles and would have lost a few votes on the bill itself but we would have prevailed with a clear majority. In today’s world, a “No” vote on even allowing the bill to be considered is so indefensible and shameful it must be reversed.

After all, the effort for D.C. voting rights in the House of Representatives was always a war. Like the battles that were lost when D.C. residents fought in the nation’s first war, however, we are planning right now to see this war through to victory. We believe that like several bills that now are moving forward in the Senate for a second time within a few months after falling short of 60 votes, S. 1257 must and will rise again during the 110th Congress. We did not have the same ammunition that the Republican leadership used to win this first battle. But, we are not without weapons, and they only grow stronger now, especially as 2008 looms on the election horizon, with independents, among our strongest supporters, likely to decide every Republican and Democratic race. Residents and their allies are taking names and gathering resources, already making calls to critical states that we should have had, and did have until the day of the vote. Our allies throughout the country are targeting senators to help make voting for our bill help and voting against it hurt.

Too many have done heroic work to do anything now but keep on and rejoice that we came so close and use the momentum that is still with us, to go the rest of the way: Joe Lieberman, who has carried whatever bill empowers the District with unequalled determination, dedication and skill as if all of us lived in Connecticut; D.C. Vote, whose ceaseless effort gave the bill a base and a reach we have never had and expert leadership that has no parallel in our history; the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, our not so secret weapon whose influence with Republican and Democratic senators is unequalled and who made S. 1257 a “scored vote,” i.e. a vote that has consequences, and they will; and those who have the most to gain – thousands of D.C. residents, many of whom had not been involved before, led by Mayor Adrian Fenty, who not only spared no effort but found effective new ways to move voting rights forward, and Council Chairman Vincent Gray who converted the D.C. Council into a formidable lobby for a bill.
One man stands alone however, and indeed was almost alone in carrying the bill among Senate Republicans. Orrin Hatch never buckled or even hesitated, when most men might well have, in his effort for a bill that was unpopular in his caucus. He could have thrown us overboard and waited patiently, hoping that Utah’s time would come without us. A former chair of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Hatch’s view of the constitutionality of our bill was critical to the support we received. I never doubted that Orrin Hatch was a principled senator because I have worked with him (yes, and against him) in the past. But, Orrin’s sense of principle was unfairly tested during the last few months in the Senate. Yet, he did not blink. In a day filled with heroes, Senator Orrin Hatch stands out.







FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Seamus Hughes
September 18, 2007 202-224-1839

LIEBERMAN DEEPLY DISAPPOINTED BY FAILURE TO SECURE 60 VOTES FOR EQUAL REPRESENTATION FOR D.C. CITIZENS
SUPPORTERS VOW TO KEEP WORKING

WASHINGTON – Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., expressed deep disappointment Tuesday at the Senate’s inability to overcome a threatened filibuster and vote to grant residents of the District of Columbia equal voting representation in Congress. S. 1257, “The District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2007” - which would have given the District voting representation in the House of Representatives and increased Utah’s congressional delegation by one member - was temporarily defeated by a procedural vote that required 60 votes. The tally was 57-42, three shy of the votes needed.

“I am deeply disappointed that, having come so close, we were not able to overcome a handful of opponents to move forward with this critically important civil rights bill,” Lieberman said. “For too long the residents of the District of Columbia have been denied a full vote in the House, and each day this injustice continues is a discredit to our democracy. My colleagues, unfortunately, chose filibuster over fairness, refusing to even allow Senate consideration of the D.C. voting rights bill. But we are undeterred and will keep working until we have the votes we need.”

Praising S. 1257 as a bipartisan bill, Lieberman said he would continue working to change three no votes to aye in the 110th Congress. And if that effort is unsuccessful, he predicted better luck in the 111th Congress.

“For more than two centuries, residents of the District of Columbia have suffered the indignity of disenfranchisement. They have paid federal taxes, died in wars and borne all the other burdens of citizenship - all without the honor and recourse of a full voice in either house of Congress,” said Lieberman. “This is a national embarrassment and we will not stop working until we correct it.”

Lieberman has a long history of supporting equal representation for D.C. residents. In 2001, he introduced S. 603, “The No Taxation Without Representation Act of 2001,” which would have provided congressional representation to D.C. citizens. On May 1, 2007, Lieberman, along with Senators Orrin Hatch and Robert Bennett, R-Utah., introduced the Senate legislation defeated Tuesday. It would have added two more voting seats in the House of Representatives, one for the District of Columbia and one for the State of Utah, based on updated population figures from the 2000 Census. The House passed a similar bill on April 20 by a vote of 241-177.

“To have your voice heard by your government is central to a functioning democracy and fundamental to a free society. Members from both parties and both houses have finally come together to find a solution to break the stalemates of the past that have denied D.C. residents equal representation in the Congress of the United States,” said Lieberman. “Now is the time to give the residents of the District what they so richly deserve and that is the same civic entitlement that every other federal tax-paying American citizen enjoys, no matter where he or she lives. By giving the citizens of the District of Columbia a genuine vote in the House, we will ensure not only that their voices will finally be fully heard. We will be following the imperatives of our national democratic values.