Martin Austermuhle
Amidst tough questions in an early afternoon press conference today on the loss of the House, the war in Iraq, and the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, President George W. Bush faced a question he wasn’t expecting — on District voting rights.
A reporter asked Bush on whether he would support legislation currently moving through Congress that would grant the District one voting seat in the House of Representatives and may come to a vote before the Democrats take power next January. “First I’ve heard of it,” Bush admitted, adding, “I’ll look at it.”
The legislation the reporter was referring to, of course, is the D.C. Fair and Equal House Voting Rights Act, which is being pushed by Virginia Representative Tom Davis (R) and D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D). The legislation has been endorsed by the House Government Reform Committee, which Davis chairs, and is currently before the Judiciary Committee, which has expressed concern with a provision that would grant Utah an additional at-large seat. Voting rights activists are currently working with legislators to craft a compromise to get the legislation passed committee chairman Representative James Sensenbrenner (R).
Bush has never much been a supporter of District voting rights, having made a small yet symbolic move in his first term when he replaced the “Taxation Without Representation” license plates on presidential limos with traditional plates that do not bear the message. That being said, District voting rights may not be the sort of thing Bush decides to exercise one of his few vetoes on — we hope.
