Results tagged “eleanorholmesnorton>”

D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton today introduced a bill that would allow District residents to elect their own District Attorney for the first time.

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."

    

This is the picture of a Town Hall Meeting on health-care reform hosted by D.C.'s non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives, Eleanor Holmes Norton. No offensive signs. No angry shouting. No vaguely racist mob clamoring to get inside.

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.

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.

Writing in the Examiner, Hayley Peterson reports on a resurrected bill from D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton that would allow private companies to take over running the District’s three public golf courses in order to finance much needed improvements. The plan, presumably, would mean access to the historically cheap public courses would become more expensive.

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.

NewsChannel 8's Bruce DePuyt has an interview with D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton in which Norton drops some teasers about what's to come in the long-stalled D.C. House Voting Rights Act (h/t Loose Lips). Apparently the White House is set to get involved, though Norton won't say exactly who. And what will the final bill look like? “We think we can keep [same-sex marriage] off of it...I think I can keep some guns off.” Hmmmm. Some? We tried to get details out of voting rights activists, but no one seemed to know much right now. The last time we checked in, Norton and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer were quibbling over when the bill should be voted on. We're now half-way through May, and time is ticking away...

First it was going to pass in February. Then in March. Or maybe April. Now it looks like the stalled legislation that would grant the District a voting seat in the House of Representatives will be voted on in May. Or not.

The Hill is reporting that D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton indicated during this morning's subcommittee hearing that she now expects the D.C. House Voting Rights Act to pass the House with a controversial amendment that would wipe out most of the District's existing gun registration laws.

“For the first time, the leaders in both houses are looking very seriously at this gun law,” Norton said a hearing this morning. “And they are aware the gun law is going to become law.”

Continue reading "Norton: Voting Rights Will Likely Pass With Gun Amendment"

First Lady Michelle Obama and D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton had lunch on Tuesday at B. Smith in Union Station, the Post reports. The first lady has been making a point of meeting with many local leaders (she previously had lunch with Mayor Adrian Fenty and his wife Michelle, for example), so news of the lunch isn't too surprising. And hey, both women are respected legal minds, so surely they had plenty to talk about. Still, we can't help but find Norton's official statement on the meeting to be kind of amusing:

Norton said the lunch conversation was all over the map, "like any girlfriends who put no limits on their conversation." Both also talked about how seldom each of them gets to go to an informal lunch like the one they enjoyed together today and vowed to do it again.

Man, can't believe we almost missed this. Thanks to Loose Lips Daily for pointing out this Colbert Report bit on the D.C. Voting Rights Act. Colbert clearly loves any excuse to have D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton back on his show. Norton says on air she thinks she'll have a vote on the floor of the U.S. House within a month. Colbert then agreed to come to D.C. to accept a key to the city should she be right. We'll certainly be waiting to see if all that turns out to be true!

D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton has made no secret of her desire to see the D.C. voting rights issue move, and move quickly. The Post's Mary Beth Sheridan writes today that Norton will introduce legislation granting both the District and Utah additional seats in the House (the same proposal passed the House in April 2007, though it failed in the Senate in September), while Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Ut.) will present the same measure to the Senate. In Norton's ideal world, all the debates and voting would be wrapped up by February 12, the bicentennial anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birthday.

Less than a month, folks. That's all the time this city has left before untold masses descend to witness Barack Obama's first day on the job. That said, color this resident slightly concerned about this Examiner report, in which the phrase "we're still working on that" is prominently featured. Also, if there's any way that the words "Inauguration," "perplexed," and "logistics" could be kept out of the same headline, that would be great. Yup, less than a month.

While some D.C. voting rights activists are debating whether to seek one voting seat in the House of Representatives or to go for full statehood, D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton is pushing full-steam ahead for a solution by early February.

While we soak in Barack Obama's historic victory over Senator John McCain (who delivered a moving and honorable concession speech), we can't ignore the change that came to our own backyard. Few of the results caught any of us by surprise. We did, though, rid ourselves of a pesky ANC commissioner, though.

The battle between Congress and the District over the city's gun laws continues today.

Well that was quick. We just got word that the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform apparently has scheduled a markup tomorrow on legislation that would gut the District's current gun regulations. As you can read earlier, D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and Council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) have tried to preempt Congress, but the committee doesn't seem too impressed. We don't yet have a time for the markup, but the folks at DC Vote have asked that concerned residents pack the hearing room. You can check their website for updates on when the markup will go down.

As we mentioned this morning, today the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is holding a hearing to discuss legislation that would do away with the District's newly-issued regulations on gun ownership. According to the pro-gun crowd, the city's regulations are still restrictive enough to violate the Supreme Court's June decision holding the District's handgun ban to be unconstitutional.

Let's face it -- a local election in an off year and in the midst of a heated presidential campaign won't attract much attention, much less lots of voters. And tomorrow's District primary likely isn't much of an exception.

Drama during the roll call! As head of the D.C. delegation, Mayor Adrian Fenty was supposed to be the one to read the District's vote into the record at the Democratic National Convention -- but Fenty didn't turn up until at least 10 minutes after D.C. was called upon to cast its votes. D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton subbed for the absent mayor, giving impromptu remarks harkening back to the voting rights themes from her speech on Tuesday while doing so. (In fact, since a lot more state delegates were actually here during the roll call, Norton got many more cheers from the crowd than she did when she was at the podium yesterday).

Some D.C. politicians say they're miffed by what they perceive as a snub against the District of Columbia by Sen. Hillary Clinton during her marquee speech at the Democratic National Convention Tuesday night.

Here's the music video that played right before Eleanor Holmes Norton was introduced at the DNC. The go-go style song, "Demand the Vote", was commissioned by DC Vote and written by D.C. musician Joe L. Da Vessel and the band Melodic. The video was directed by Warren Wesley at G-light Films.

With delegations from most other states yet to take their seats in the Pepsi Center, the District of Columbia's delegation did their best to make up for the relatively empty house during D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton's speech by cheering loudly and chanting, "We want the vote!"

D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton is set to open the second day of the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Unlike Monday, the D.C. delegation has shown up bright and early to watch Norton speak. Most of D.C.'s section of the Pepsi Center is full at just after 3 p.m. Mountain time.

      

The District of Columbia's delegates to the Democratic National Convention gathered early this morning at the Crowne Plaza hotel in downtown Denver for a collegial breakfast before heading out to lobby other delegations to support voting rights for D.C.

When the Democratic Party gathers in Denver next week for its national convention, the D.C. delegation will do what D.C. does best -- complain about our lack of voting representation. But even as they push for the District to be given a full voting seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, a group of frustrated voting rights activists are crying foul over the Democratic Party's failure to endorse full statehood in their national platform.

Last night a handful of D.C. Democratic delegates came together with organizers and volunteers from DC Vote for a pre-Democratic National Convention party at the Bohemian Caverns Mahogany Room. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton rallied the troops with a few remarks, urging delegates and voting rights volunteers not to forget that the District's delegation is "very different from other delegations." District residents can't attend the DNC for fun and games, she said, because they need to be out in full force spreading the word to other delegates from around the country that they need to support voting rights for the District.

If you agree with some of the commenters in the Roundup that WUSA's account of Dick Heller's experience at the District's gun registration office this morning was a little confusing, seems like you're probably right. D.C. Wire has what appears to be a better report that Heller didn't even bring a gun with him to register this morning, but instead expressed "his frustrations with the District's continued ban on semiautomatic weapons." What's up with that weird report, WUSA?