At a quick press conference yesterday before the D.C. Council’s first legislative session of 2012, Mayor Vince Gray and most of the council touted their upcoming trip to New Hampshire where they will lobby the state legislature there to endorse District statehood.
Gray, who will be on the January 12 trip to the Granite State, mentioned briefly a similar trip he was on four years ago, and said the statehood push is a “much broader issue” today than it was in 2008. The statehouse in Concord is the first stop on a national tour of state legislatures being spearheaded by council members Michael A. Brown and David Catania, both At-Large independents.
“I look forward to the day we become one state,” Gray said, playing off his “One City” theme. The mayor was joined at the podium by every member of the council except Vincent Orange (D-At Large), Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4) and Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5), though the latter’s absence came of little surprise.
Catania said he’s gotten familiar with New Hampshire officials through the D.C. Council’s membership in the National Conference of State Legislatures, mentioning specifically Cindy Rosenwald, a member of the New Hampshire State of Representatives who has sponsored multiple resolutions backing D.C. statehood. (Catania added that a measure Rosenwald sponsored in 2008 was approved but not entered into the official record because a snowstorm that winter prevented the New Hampshire legislature from having an official quorum on that vote.)
But the new push goes well beyond New Hampshire. Brown told DCist Tuesday that besides New England, he’s also working on trips to Florida, Illinois, New York, Tennessee, Maryland and Alaska.
And while Brown said again that his scheduling is more in line with local legislative calendars, it’s difficult to overlook the election-year optics. The New Hampshire junket—which will be attended by Gray, D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown, and several other members of the council, along with representatives of the group D.C. Vote—comes just two days after the Granite State holds the first primary of the 2012 presidential election. The Florida leg of the tour is anticipated for the end of the month; that state’s Republican primary takes place January 31.
Michael A. Brown said the council members’ travel to New Hampshire and elsewhere will be paid for out of the non-professional services portion of the council’s budget, though he said he paid for his own ticket to Concord next week. Likewise, D.C. Vote is paying its own way, and will be represented by its public affairs director, Eugene Kinlow, as well as one or two “citizen lobbyists.” Kinlow did not have any names in mind, though he said they will probably not be chosen from the group of protesters who recently went on a weeks-long hunger strike in support of D.C. voting rights.
Kinlow also said that in addition to the statehouse trips he hopes to make this year, D.C. Vote is looking at traveling to Tampa, Fla. for the Republican National Convention and to Charlotte, N.C. for the Democratic National Convention.
