Toward Full House Representation for the District

With Democrats in control of Congress, pressure and expectations are high for passage of H.R. 328, the D.C. Fair and Equal House Voting Rights Act that Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) and I came close to getting through the past Congress. Today, however, the House will consider a separate voting option for the District and the four U.S. territories. The two bills should not be confused.

The measure that Congress plans to take up today, which I support, would permit me and other delegates (from U.S. territories) to vote in the Committee of the Whole on much of the House's business. The return of the delegate vote would be welcome and useful, and it is not surprising that Democrats would want to return a vote to U.S. citizens that has been authorized by the federal courts.

Today, I will ask my colleagues not to allow past differences on delegate voting to infect the bipartisanship that Mr. Davis and I have struggled to achieve on H.R. 328, which would benefit both political parties by providing new voting representatives for Utah and the District.

Given the work by civil rights and civic organizations over the past four years, most people expect that a vote for the District will be a vote for H.R. 328 -- a full House vote to permit a seat for the District in the 110th Congress.

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

U.S. Delegate (D-D.C.)

Washington