District Mayor Anthony A. Williams has made D.C. voting rights a top priority during his year-long tenure as president of the National League of Cities, and yesterday he called on the leaders of dozens of state municipal leagues to join his campaign.
"I think it is appropriate to use my podium to speak to you about something that is very important to me," Williams (D) told the officials, gathered in Washington for an annual conference of the National League of Cities. "I'm not asking for your endorsement of two voting representatives in the U.S. Senate. What I'm asking is your support of . . . voting rights for one representative in Congress."
Mayor Anthony A. Williams pitched D.C. voting rights during an address to the National League of Cities.
(Jay Westcott--The Washington Post)
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Yesterday's luncheon at the Washington Hilton and Towers marked the second time during the league's three-day conference that Williams has delivered a voting-rights pitch. He also discussed the District's plight during his keynote address Sunday to the 2,400 delegates, telling them that "here in Washington, D.C., our soldiers can fight and die in wars, but they do not have a single vote in Congress to represent their views."
Williams also touched on the subject when he was elected league president in Indianapolis in December. And he has pledged to press the point when he travels to dozens of league events across the nation in the coming months. Under his direction, the league's staff produced a video to explain the subject to a national audience, which is inclined to support D.C.'s quest for voting rights once people understand the issue, according to a recent poll.
Williams said his goal is to "build a critical mass" of support outside the Capital Beltway "that will help members of Congress feel comfortable in approving a vote" for Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.).
Kevin Kiger, spokesman for the nonprofit voting rights organization D.C. Vote, said Williams's advocacy represents the most significant and sustained push for voting rights since both houses of Congress approved a constitutional amendment in 1978. The effort died in 1985 after the amendment was ratified by only 16 states.
"We're very excited that the mayor has taken this on as an issue," Kiger said. "There's a lot of strategy and tactical thinking that went into this."
But the league-produced video proved not ready for prime time when Williams attempted to show it at yesterday's luncheon.
The DVD skipped and stuttered like an old-fashioned vinyl record, forcing the mayor to abandon that part of the presentation. He forged ahead nonetheless with an address that was part history lesson, part political appeal.
The District of Columbia, he told the crowd, was founded as a federal territory after surly war veterans demanding benefits stormed the nation's previous capital, Philadelphia. Local politicians sided with the veterans, prompting national leaders to move their business to territory under their control.
The founders understood that the lack of voting rights for District residents "was a problem," Williams said, but "they figured they would get around to it at some point."
They never did, of course. And today, the District, whose population of 575,000 is bigger than one state's, has no vote in either the House or the Senate, Williams told the crowd.
"There are a spectrum of things we in the District are fighting for," he said, ranging from such "elemental" rights as legislative and budget autonomy to "full voting rights" in both houses of Congress.
In 2001, at Williams's request, the National League of Cities approved a resolution supporting the District's right to a vote in the House.
Legislation is pending that would temporarily expand the House from 435 to 437 seats to give the District a permanent voting representative for the first time. The plan, sponsored by Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), would also give an extra representative to Utah.
The House would revert to 435 after reapportionment for the 2012 election; the District would retain its seat.
