No More Waiting
It's time for the Senate to bring D.C. voting rights to the floor.

Thursday, September 6, 2007

VOTING RIGHTS for the District have a toehold on the ambitious to-do list that Senate Democrats hope to tackle in the coming weeks. Already, though, there are soundings that more pressing matters might delay consideration of Senate Bill 1257 -- as if there is anything more urgent than redressing the injustice of citizens being denied a voice in their government.

With Congress back from its summer recess, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) laid out what he hopes to accomplish in the five weeks before the Columbus Day break. That voting rights legislation, as CQ Today reported, was among the measures cited is evidence of the Democrats' continuing commitment. Nonetheless, supporters of the bill worry that necessary spending bills and high-profile issues such as Iraq will yet again delay a floor vote on the bill. It's been four months since the House gave its approval to legislation that would add two seats to the 435-seat House, one for the District, which is mostly Democratic, and the other for the predominantly Republican state of Utah.

It's time for the Senate to act. Arguments that there are more timely matters before the Congress are belied by the more than 200 years that D.C. residents have been deprived of their rightful representation. Then, too, supporters should not be dissuaded by the possibility that some Republicans may try to filibuster the bill. That the legislation is the brainchild of a Republican (Rep. Thomas M. Davis III of Virginia), is embraced by the District's nonvoting Democratic delegate (Eleanor Holmes Norton) and is championed by an independent (Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut) underscores the notion that principle, not party, should be the framework for this debate.

A refreshing example of that is Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee's recent endorsement of D.C. voting rights. Mr. Huckabee's backing of the measure, by his own reckoning, won't win him any support. It also apparently makes him the GOP presidential field's singular example of logic and courage on this issue. But, as he told the Associated Press, "I personally think people in D.C. ought to be able to vote. . . . They're American citizens, they pay taxes and it just doesn't quite seem right to me that a person living within our borders, living under our laws . . . would somehow be even partially disenfranchised." From his mouth to the ears of the Senate.