Today’s Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on the D.C. Voting Rights Act is couched within the committee’s regular business meeting, but Chairman Joe Lieberman is speaking about the bill right now. You can stream the hearing live here. Lieberman was one of the bill’s main sponsors in the Senate last time around, so he’s making some predictably pro-voting rights remarks about the historic injustice of the status of the District. Earlier, Lieberman acknowledged Mayor Adrian Fenty as being present, along with someone who is apparently dressed up in some sort of colonial era costume— they were off camera, but we’re going to speculate wildly that it might be DC Vote’s Eli Zigas, who is better known for dressing as Abe Lincoln.

UPDATE 10:25 a.m.: Big names talking D.C. voting rights! First, freshly minted Illinois Sen. Roland Burris made a point of voicing his support for the bill. Now, Sen. John McCain, another new member of the committee, is coming out against the bill, saying it’s unconstitutional, and making the point that the Utah compromise is a bad deal because every state is unhappy with its number of representatives due to the inherent flaws of the U.S. Census.

10:35 a.m. The committee votes to support the bill by a vote of 11-1 of those members present. The single present committee member who voted against was McCain, though by my count three other members voted against by proxy, including one of our favorite senators, Tom Coburn.