Photo by cmoaknd

Looking back on my end-of-the-year reviews of the D.C. voting rights movement from 2006 and 2007, there was a trend in my thinking on the issue and the progress it was making — I always assumed the coming year would be the one.

That held for 2009. With a Democratic president who had pledged his support for D.C. statehood during the campaign and Democratic majorities in both the House and the Senate, everyone seemed to think that this would be the year that the District would get something. The safe bet was that the legislation that would grant the District a voting seat in the House would finally make it through both the House and the Senate and get to President Obama’s desk.

It almost did. While the Senate passed the legislation in February, it did so while attaching an amendment authored by Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) that would have done away with the District’s existing gun laws and prohibited the city from enacting any new ones. House Democrats were unable to ensure that the same amendment would not make it into their version of the bill, and persistent threats from the NRA to score procedural votes threw the support of conservative Democrats into question. The amendment even divided local officials, with Mayor Adrian Fenty arguing that the District should just accept it while Norton and members of the D.C. Council adamantly argued against any intrusion into local affairs.