By Guy Smith
September 24, 2007

The District of Columbia’s hope of obtaining voting representation in Congress came up this three Senate votes short of 60 needed to avoid a filibuster Sept. 18. D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty was on the Senate floor with the D.C. non-voting delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, lobbying for the measure with Senate supporters. The measure passed the house in April but was opposed by Republican Senators and, most likely, will not come up for debate this year.

The legislation, crafted to be politically neutral, would have given an additional Congressional seat to Utah, a heavily Republican state. Before the vote, the White House issued a statement threatening a veto of the measure if it passed the Senate.

The nation’s capital has 600,000 residents. Proponents agreed that D.C. residents deserve full representation since they pay federal taxes, service on federal juries, cast votes in presidential elections and serve in the military. The U.S. Conference of Mayors has policy supporting full voting representation in Congress for the District of Columbia.