Could This Be the Year?

· Republicans want to expand their reach beyond the white suburban base to appeal not only to blacks, but to Hispanics and other immigrants who may see a District seat as a symbol of a country embracing its minority population.

Several Republicans who have switched sides on D.C. voting rights in recent weeks said that Kemp persuaded them to focus on this as the premier civil rights question of the day.

"I would like someday for African Americans to feel more at home in the Republican Party than they have in the past 70 years," said Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana. "I cannot believe the Founders intended to deny 550,000 Americans representation."

Kemp points to Republican opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act as the moment when his party lost the bulk of its black support, and he warns against a repeat performance. "Members say, 'Well, black people in L.A. don't care about this,' " Kemp says of his conversations with lawmakers. "Let me tell you, African Americans know that Washington, D.C., is a majority-black city with an African American mayor. This is one of the last chances the Republicans have to be a truly national party."

· In the shadow of an unpopular war and a gloomy cloud of anti-American sentiment around the world, an increasing number of Republicans are looking for ways to counter criticism that the United States is less than a paragon of democratic virtue at home.

On a trip to see the chief executive of Hong Kong, Davis raised the issue of China's interference with that city's election system. The chief executive turned on the congressman, saying, "Don't you lecture me -- you don't even let residents of your capital city vote." U.S. officials are apparently encountering ever more such difficult moments abroad.

"Young men and women are being sent from D.C. to Baghdad," Kemp says. "The hypocrisy is painful. It's just unbelievable how Republicans could turn away from American citizens who want to vote. I don't see how they can sleep at night."

· Americans are sick of polarization in Washington, in the media and in the way politicians market themselves. The D.C. voting rights bill presents Republicans with an opportunity to demonstrate independence from purely partisan motivations (even as the scheme to grant an extra seat to Utah seeks to neutralize the partisan impact of the change).

"This is about being on the right or wrong side of history," said Rep. Paul D. Ryan, a conservative from Wisconsin. After he and his wife went on a civil rights pilgrimage with Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat, he came home determined "to make sure that if I see this kind of injustice in my time, I'm not complicit in it."