Photo by ellievanhoutte

After legislation that would grant the District a voting seat in the House was shelved last week, we called on President Obama to lend a hand and expressed concern that the proposal may be dead for the year, if not dead for good. Regardless, the cause soldiers on. Below is a rundown of the latest voting rights news.

DC Vote Takes to the States: The folks at DC Vote dedicated roughly three years of resources and energy to seeing the current voting rights legislation move forward, and they’re not about to let a pesky gun amendment stand in the way of D.C. residents and their voting rights. In a press release issued last Friday, DC Vote told of their plans to travel to a number of states to put pressure on members of Congress who pushed the amendment that would do away with the city’s gun laws. Their first target? Rep. Travis Childers, a Mississippi Democrat who sponsored gun law-busting legislation late last year. DC Vote has taken to the states before, traveling to a Oregon, Montana and other states in 2007 and 2008 to pressure moderate senators who voted against the voting rights legislation.

Giving Up? Heck No: We sounded something of a pessimistic note last week after the voting rights legislation died, but on Sunday DC Vote Executive Director Ilir Zherka and D.C. Council Chair Vincent Gray tried to keep happy faces about the whole situation in a Post op-ed. “We are fueled for change, and recent obstacles call attention to the need for more separation between congressional rule and the District. In fact, local efforts will be expanded to support full democracy and autonomy in Washington, in addition to pursuing voting rights for the District,” they wrote. “This round in the fight has made us stronger. The District’s leadership stands united with a national coalition dedicated to aggressively taking on anyone who stubbornly stands in the way of democracy in our nation’s capital.”

We’re Coming for You, Voting Rights Opponents: The DCeiver asked, and you shall receive. In a post last week, he wrote of voting rights opponents: “I think we need DCist to run down a list of all the DC Vote obstructionists and start revoking some DC privileges wholesale. Name names, start handing out photo arrays and start making life problematic for these people who, for the forseeable future, have to try to make a go of it here, for their vaunted career in politics.” Keep an eye on DCist in the coming week or two as we start calling out the biggest voting rights foes. It’ll be the blogging equivalent of flaming bags of dog poo on their front stoops.