It seemed like it would be our year. After lobbying throughout most of 2006, voting rights activists and their allies in Congress had all but convinced House Republicans to go along with a plan to grant the District one voting seat in the House of Representatives. The relevant congressional committees had signed off on the legislation; Utah, which would similarly gain a seat in a partisan tit-for-tat exchange, formally endorsed the idea; President Bush indicated he would review the proposal; and incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said it would be at the top of her list of legislative priorities were it not passed in the waning days of the 109th Congress.

And then it all fell apart. Facing up to unfinished spending bills and unwilling to act on legislation that offered no immediate political benefit, Republicans announced that the District's residents wouldn't be getting anything approaching voting representation in 2006. Worse yet, the Democrats' legislative calender suddenly got very busy. Minimum wage, prescription drug costs, reliance on foreign oil, balancing the budget, cleaning up Congress, settling the mess the in Iraq -- these would all have to be dealt with before District voting rights could be considered. Maybe in 2007, right?

Hopefully. But we're not holding our breath. The legislation in question -- the D.C. Fair and Equal House Voting Rights Act -- was the ultimate in pragmatic resolutions to the longstanding disenfranchisement of the District's 600,000 residents. Crafted by Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) and D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the proposal and its proponents undercut the predictable opposition in every way possible. For the Republican partisans, Utah would be granted an additional seat to counter-balance the reliably Democratic District seat. For those concerned with the legislation's constitutional propriety, Republican legal scholars and lobbyists lined up to vouch for its legality (Ken Starr and Jack Kemp played important roles). But even that wasn't enough. The issue just isn't big enough, and not enough people care about it to give it the necessary momentum.

But maybe there is cause for optimism. Pelosi has already expressed support for the legislation, and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer hails from just across the D.C./Maryland line. Davis and Norton have done the majority of the grunt work, now it simply takes Pelosi and Hoyer to find a small hole in the legislative calender and call a vote. It might not be until later in the year, but that's better than not at all. Of course, obstacles have a way of getting between District residents and their voting rights, and the voting rights movement has yet to reconcile differences between those that see the legislation as a sellout to the larger cause of statehood and those that see it as the right move at the right time.

So for now we seem to be in a voting rights holding pattern. But inroads have been made, and plenty of work has been done. Maybe in 2007 it will finally be completed.

>>DCist on voting rights

Picture snapped by rllayman