The Year in Voting Rights: So Close, Yet So Far
When in the closing days of 2006 we looked back on the year in D.C. voting rights, we optimistically hoped that 2007 would finally be the year that saw some movement on enfranchising the District's residents. Movement, yes; resolution, not so much. So as we wind down 2007, we're again left hoping that maybe the coming year will be the one.
The primary mover in the D.C. voting rights movement in 2007 was legislation introduced by D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) that would grant the District a voting seat in the House of Representatives. Originally put before a Republican Congress in 2006, the legislation, which would also hand Utah an additional seat, was given new life with a new mayor and a new Democratic Congress. And though the legislation faced nagging constitutional questions, determined Republican opposition, a veto threat from President Bush and dirty procedural tricks during a House floor debate, the Democratic majority successfully endorsed the measure on April 19. Some five months later, though, the Senate narrowly upheld a filibuster on the legislation, effectively stopping any progress on D.C. voting rights for 2007.
The loss on the Hill notwithstanding, the year saw a new and encouraging expansion of citizen activism on the issue. Early on, residents and voting rights supporters fanned out in Congress to lobby members of the House. On April 16, some 5,000 souls braved frigid weather for the Voting Rights March, finally putting a face to the issue. And thanks to the determined leadership of D.C. Vote, a number of new and creative means to push the issue were kicked off, including hounding the senators that voted against the legislation, YouTube questions for the Republican presidential candidates, a proposal for a large billboard outside the Wilson Building tallying the amount of federal taxes District residents have paid, and an anniversary re-enactment of the Boston Tea Party. We even jumped in the action, participating in a panel discussion on D.C. voting rights at the YearlyKos Convention in Chicago.
And no end-of-the-year roundup on voting rights would be complete without mentioning Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.). During a speech in the midst of the House debate in March, Gohmert claimed that since every member of Congress had a vested interest in making sure that the District's trash was picked up and its trains ran on time, the city's residents wouldn't really need their own representative. So we did what we expected he would want us to -- we adopted him as our representative and steered a few hundred constituent calls his way.
So what can we expect in 2008? It's tough to say. Though voting rights activists are determined to keep the issue alive in Congress and on the campaign trail, congressional leaders haven't committed to bringing the legislation back to the Senate. Even if they did and it passed, it could face a veto from President Bush. We might end up having to wait until after the 2008 elections, when a potential Democratic president and larger margins in both the House and the Senate would allow the legislation to move through more quickly. And if that were to happen, we'd still be left with another set of issues to tackle: representation in the Senate, budget autonomy and statehood.
Sure, we're coming up on the end of 2007 without the victory we would have hoped for. But more activists have been engaged, the issue has been given more national play than ever before, and we all have a better idea of what exactly the coming challenges are. District residents have known for the last 200 years that fighting for voting rights is an uphill battle, but 2007 proved that the energy is still there to keep going.
We'd be remiss in not recognizing the efforts of all the activists and residents who wage this battle every day. Though too many to name, we're thankful for the work done by D.C. Vote and its partners, the Shadow Delegation, the D.C. Council and our congressional allies.