Results tagged “congress>”

With the D.C. Council's same-sex marriage bill scheduled for a December 1 vote and a petition to put the issue on the ballot denied, opponents of same-sex marriage might finally have to live up to a threat they've been making in recent months: to take the issue to Congress.

The fight for D.C. voting rights has always been two-fold. On one front, the city has demanded representation in Congress, while on the other it has fought for greater autonomy in local budgetary and legislative matters. While the struggle for congressional representation often gets more press, tomorrow a hearing on Capitol Hill will focus on how better to allow the city to make decisions for itself.

Two weeks ago, we reported that an amendment granting the District a voting seat in the House might be tacked on to a defense spending bill. Now, it doesn't look like that will happen.

Legislation legalizing same-sex marriage in the District is going to pass, and no one is more aware of that fact than its opponents. Seeing that they've got little chance of swinging any votes on the D.C. Council, they've instead announced an offensive that will include pushing Congress to stop the legislation from taking effect and using the courts to enforce the federal Defense of Marriage Act on the city.

Of course, when Republicans heard of the rumor, they weren't pleased, arguing that D.C. voting rights has no place in a defense spending bill. Responding to those concerns, on Thursday Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) argued otherwise. "Now whether or not that will be included in the Defense bill, it is about democracy. It is about participation. It is about respect...I will tell my friend that I will continue to fight as hard as I can to try to figure out how I can bring that bill to the floor, get it to a vote, and give the people of the District of Columbia, our fellow citizens, the right to vote as the citizens in Baghdad can do, the citizens in Moscow can do, the citizens in every free country in the world except the United States of America, can do."

If there's one thing that no member of Congress wants to be accused of, it's not supporting the troops. That very fear might be the only thing that finally gets the District a voting seat in the House of Representatives.

Despite offering some lukewarm remarks last week deferring to the D.C. Council on the effort to extend full marriage benefits to same-sex couples in the District of Columbia, D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton offered a statement today in support of marriage equality legislation the Council will take up next week. "Although opposition by some in the House already has been announced, I believe Congress will and should defeat opposition to gay marriage rights in the District of Columbia as enacted by the District’s own elected officials," Norton said. "Opposition to civil rights is not new. We should approach the rights of gay couples and families with the same resolution and results as we had for others who have sought their human rights in Congress and in the District."

Oh boy! If this actually succeeds, how can we not get a seat in the House? The New York Times reports today on a lawsuit that just might increase the size of the House of Representatives, and dramatically so. The lawsuit claims that the current system of apportioning seats in the House leaves some voters with more representation than others. For example, while one district in Nevada has 960,000 voters, Wyoming's single district only has 523,000. The solution? Increase the size of the House to as few as 932 or as many as 1,761 seats so that voting districts are smaller and voting power distributed more equitably. Jesus. The prospect of 1,761 members of the House and their respective staffs gives us a headache just thinking about it. On the other hand, we'd have to get at least one of those seats, right? Just out of pity? Please? But seriously, while we feel for the poor residents of Nevada's 3rd District, we'd like to point out that no one is less represented in the U.S. than District residents. Sure, there's almost a million of you out there, but at least you have a representative.

The Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire reported last night that Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Tex.) has fired off a letter to WMATA General Manager John Catoe complaining that the transit agency did not adequately prepare for last Saturday's 9/12 Tea Party protests, in some cases leaving participants stranded. The Post also has the story.

The last two smoking rooms on Capitol Hill, in the Cannon and Longworth House Office Buildings, will close for good this week, The Hill reports.

Normally we wouldn't care about something like this much, but this is the District's representative in Congress we're talking about here. Nope, not D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, but Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-D.C.Texas). During President Obama's Wednesday night speech on health care, Gohmert managed not to violate age-old rules of congressional decorum, though he did spend the better part of the speech waving a sign that said "What Bill" on one side and "What Plan" on the other.

Five Years On: On Wednesday we gathered to celebrate DCist's fifth anniversary, which caused me to reflect on how in those five years I've written countless posts and gotten into innumerable arguments with some in the commentariat -- all over D.C. voting rights. In the last five years -- which, in the grand scheme of 200 years of injustice is nothing -- the voting rights movement has had hope and seen defeat, but never really achieved any of its goals. This isn't to criticize the selfless and noble work of those who advocate on behalf of the District's enfranchisement more than it is to say that, well, we're still unrepresented in Congress. Yet the fight continues, and with each passing day comes a new reminder of the ways big and small that our particular injustice is rubbed in. Maybe it will take another five years before the plight of the District's residents is remedied. Maybe it'll take 50. Who knows. But as the city comes alive again after the August break, another cycle of hoping, organizing and advocating begins anew. Let's just hope that by the time DCist turns 10 or 15, I'm not still writing about how it sucks not to have voting rights.

President Barack Obama will be addressing a joint session of Congress tonight to make his big health care speech, so the usual security perimeter around the U.S. Capitol for such events will be in effect. The president's speech is set to begin at 8 p.m., but the Capitol Square will be restricted beginning at 6 p.m. The United States Capitol Police are also advising that the following streets will be closed beginning at 6:30 p.m. until the end of the speech.

Jeez. For someone who prides himself on ranting about the District's lack of voting rights on a regular basis, I realized today that the last thing I had to say about the city's longstanding disenfranchisement was on June 10. On that day, we found out that Congress was laying to rest -- at least for the time being -- legislation that would grant the city a voting seat in the House. Since then, well, it's been radio silence from DCist HQ. (OK, so there was that one piece on June 24 about President Obama's license plate, but let's be honest -- that's not terribly substantial, now is it?)

No big surprise here, but the U.S. Senate just voted 68-31 to confirm Sonia Sotomayor as the next U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Sotomayor will be the first Hispanic and only the third female justice ever.

One more hurdle cleared toward getting dedicated funding for Metro. The Senate Appropriations Committee went ahead and included $150 million for Metro in a FY2010 spending bill, the Post reports. Last year, Congress approved $1.5 billion over 10 years for Metro, with the caveat that D.C., Virginia, and Maryland all provided matching funds - something each jurisdiction already agreed to do. The House already approved its own spending bill that includes the money, which was not originally included in President Obama's budget. The Senate still needs to vote on the bill, and the president has to sign it, before Metro actually gets a check.

Oh right, we meant to link to The Hill newspaper's 50 Most Beautiful 2009 feature, aka the annual "Hill Hotties" list, which hit the stands earlier this week. As is tradition, we turn to DCist alum Jason Linkins, aka DCeiver and now of the Huffington Post, for the crucial analysis:

What makes The Hill's annual listicle is, frankly, The Hill itself. With their oddball fixations, strange beauty metaphors, and bizarre photography decisions, the keepers of this list have always been one of the main attractions. Sadly, this year's list is not nearly as bizarre as last year's was. I like to think that maybe The Hill is working hard to deprive me of material. Sounds arrogant? Maybe. But the alternative -- that our government is getting less beautiful -- is just too difficult to contemplate.

We were all set to write off the Associated Press's latest attempt (via WTOP) to recycle the "National Mall is a National Disgrace" story template, which has been a favorite of the local media for years now (for examples, see last year's versions here and 2007's here). We all already know that the National Mall is looking pretty banged up, with cracked walkways, dead, trampled grass, dying trees and mud making what should be the country's pride and joy look shabby and depressing. We also already know that when President Obama tried to steer $200 million out of his stimulus package to renovate the National Mall, it was killed by the House. But the AP's Brian Westley and Brett Zongker have done a nice job of reporting out the story behind the story: that members of Congress routinely earmark money for national parks in their home states, while torpedoing such efforts for the Mall, which, by virtue of being located in the District, doesn't have any powerful members of Congress to fight for it. Here's the meat:

All told, Congress sent home more than $181 million in earmarks through the park service budget last year _ an election year _ according to data compiled by the group Taxpayers for Common Sense and analyzed by the AP. Nearly half that money was driven by lawmakers who were on the House and Senate appropriations committees.

Continue reading "AP Revisits 'National Mall is a Disgrace' Story"

Earlier this year we pointed out that DaVinci Code author Dan Brown's newest book, The Lost Symbol, is set here in Washington, concerns itself with the mysteries of the Masons, and is due out in September. Now via The New York Times' Arts Beat blog, we finally get a look at the cover of the book, which depicts "a shadowy skyline of the Capitol."

If you so choose, here's some video of Al Franken being sworn in to the U.S. Senate by Vice President Joe Biden this afternoon, courtesy The Hill. Franken reportedly took the oath on a Bible that belonged to the family of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.). The AP noted that 'the former Saturday Night Live performer and satirist offered no jokes, just a promise that he is "ready get to work."' After months and months of waiting, the new junior senator from the state of Minnesota officially gives the Democratic Party a crucial 60-seat Senate majority.

As we return from the Fourth of July weekend, many of us are still recovering from celebrating America's independence and a system of representative government that guarantees that each and every citizen can have a voice in the policies and decisions that affect their lives. But of course, no Independence Day is free from irony for District residents -- while one of the rallying cries of the movement for independence from Britain was a lack of representation (while being taxed, no less), the 600,000 or so of us in D.C. still live with that reality, some two centuries later. Somewhere, the Brits are smirking.

              

"Yeah Energy and Commerce!”

Roll Call is reporting (subscription only) that Rep. Marion Berry (D-Ark.) -- NOT TO BE CONFUSED with Ward 8 D.C. Council member and former mayor Marion Barry -- grossly understated the value of his Capitol Hill rowhouse on his annual financial disclosure forms.

In May, Berry filed a financial disclosure form reporting the value of the house at between $250,000 and $500,000, the same value that he has listed on his disclosure forms each year.

Continue reading "Congressman Underreports Value of His D.C. Home"

After yesterday's announcement that House leaders were shelving legislation that would grant the District a single vote in Congress, the measure appeared to be all but dead. Activists and proponents of the legislation disagreed with that assessment, though, arguing that it wasn't the proposal that was at fault -- it was merely the timing. They'd get the legislation, which would also grant Utah an additional seat in the House (at least until the next Census), back on the floor soon enough.

President Obama has a way with words. Unlike the somewhat elementary formulations of his predecessor, Obama has tackled a number of complex issues -- torture and Guantanamo Bay, relations with the Muslim world -- in recent speeches. He is keenly aware of the power his words hold, and he doesn't act like the American people are children lacking the capacity to understand and digest tough issues. It's time he stepped up and used his oratory for the sake of District voting rights.

MORE 2:28 p.m.: D.C. Vote Executive Director Ilir Zherka just returned our call, and takes issue with our characterization that the D.C. House Voting Rights Act is "dead."

Grim news on the long-delayed D.C. House Voting Rights Act. Roll Call reports (subscription only) from House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's regular Tuesday press conference that the congressman is pulling the bill from consideration for the foreseeable future.

It looks like Congress has once again left District residents without a resolution on voting rights. At the end of March, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said he expected the D.C. House Voting Rights Act to come to a vote in some form by the end of May. But the U.S. House left town for its Memorial Day recess last night, making it now impossible for anything to happen until June at the earliest. We're also still waiting to see if the White House is going to get involved, as D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton claimed last week and the Post demanded yesterday. Rumor has it that Attorney General Eric Holder is on the job, but even a big push from him next week wouldn't yield any forward momentum from an absent Congress. We're still hoping for the best, but we're not above feeling like we're stuck in a real-life version of Groundhog Day.

The District of Columbia today gained a few more members of Congress who think they know what's best for our city. A handful of socially conservative House members gathered reporters this afternoon to introduce a bill that would define marriage in D.C. as a "union of one man and one woman," Politico reports. The effort is designed to signal opposition to recent D.C. Council action that would allow same-sex marriages legally performed in other states to be recognized in the District, as well as any further local legislation that might come this year to legalize such ceremonies in D.C.

First the issue of guns came to haunt the D.C. voting rights bill, now it seems to be haunting other pieces of legislation Democrats are looking to pass. The Politico reports today that Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) has all but thrown in the towel, admitting that Republicans have effectively used amendments related to guns to either stall legislation or force conservative Democrats into tough votes. While the voting rights bill has been stuck due to an amendment that would gut the District's gun laws, legislation on credit cards will likely pass with an amendment attached that will expand gun carrying rights in national parks. Hoyer still claims that the D.C. voting rights bill will pass "one way or another."