By Aishatu Yusuf, USCM intern
May 21, 2007

Voting rights legislation for the District of Columbia (DC) may be gaining more support from the Senate. The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs held a hearing on DC voting rights Senate Bill 1275, on May 15, entitled “Equal Representation in Congress: Providing Voting Rights to the District of Columbia,” chaired by Senator Joe Lieberman (CT).

The witness panel consisted of Senator Orrin Hatch (UT), Representative Thomas M. Davis III (VA), Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC), and Washington (DC) Mayor Adrian Fenty, among others.

The legislation will give DC a voting member in the United States Congress, as well as give an additional congressional seat to Utah. The legislation passed the House of Representatives on April 19 by a 241 to 177 vote. If passed by the Senate, it will provide voting rights to the current non-voting DC delegate.

Testifying on behalf of the DC Voting Rights legislation, Fenty said the current situation denies DC residents a fundamental right to vote; and to deny that right is unconstitutional.

Opponents of the DC Voting Rights Act claim limitations of the House of Representatives to members elected by “the several states” as stated by the Constitution, and therefore cannot include DC. Fenty said, “Congress has acted hundreds of times under the District Clause and other parts of the Constitution to treat the District as a “state”…including taxation and diversity of citizenship.” The point made by both Fenty and Norton is that if Congress can treat DC as a state in some legislation, it should be treated as a state for this particular legislation.

Fenty also said, “I believe the framers of the Constitution could not have imagined a thriving metropolis of more than a half-million people living year-round in the District of Columbia… so it is beyond good sense that the framers of the Constitution would intend to deprive residents of the nation’s capital of their fundamental right to vote.”

Norton said she was dissatisfied with the current representation of DC saying, “S. 1275 will finally erase a history of wrong and the denial of a vote to the residents who live in our capitol, where black people are the majority, carries an unintended message around the world.”

The DC Voting Rights Act is likely to gain enough support to pass through the Senate Committee next month, with support from GOP co'sponsors Hatch and Bennett. The legislation needs to gain the support of at least ten Republicans to make it out of committee and 60 Senate votes to pass; but may remain subject to a filibuster. Supporters of the bill feel it may have a chance to pass the Senate. Jack Kemp, a former Republican Congressman from New York and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President George H.W. Bush said, “There[s] a lot of people on the fence.” Lieberman stated at the hearing he is confident that the legislation will pass the Senate. “Were making the right progress. Lets not assume the president wont sign this,” he said. Opposition to the legislation still remains from many Republicans, but may shift as testimony continues.