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Reid pledges floor time for voting rights bill, if it is passed by committee
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Following a meeting in Reid’s office, the Nevada Democrat joined Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and much of the D.C. Council for a news conference at the U.S. Capitol.
The voting rights measure is now before the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which Lieberman chairs, and a vote is scheduled for Wednesday to move it to the floor. The bill, which has already won approval from the U.S. House, would expand the House by two seats, one for the District and the other for Utah.
“Moving the ball down the court means getting it out of committee and scheduling time on the floor, and I intend to do that,” Reid said.
Once on the floor, the measure faces a potential Republican filibuster — a maneuver that can only be stopped with 60 votes.
The legislation is co-sponsored by the two Republican senators from Utah, Orrin Hatch and Robert Bennett.
Lieberman said he is optimistic the legislation will come out of his committee “with bipartisan support,” which supporters of the momentum can take to the chamber floor.
Reid said he hasn’t started counting votes yet.
“We have our work ahead of us because we need 60 votes, and I don’t believe we have them right now,” Lieberman said. “But we’re in reach.”
Republican critics argue the measure is unconstitutional: The House is to comprise representatives from “the several states,” they say, and the District is not a state.
President Bush has threatened a veto.
“For constitutional, moral and other reasons, we deserve a vote, and we deserve a vote in Congress today,” Fenty said.
mneibauer@dcexaminer.com
Comments from Examiner Readers
8:29 PM MST on Fri., Sep. 26, 2008 re: "Civil rights groups ‘outraged’ by absentee voting problems"
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2:16 PM MST on Sun., Jul. 6, 2008
re: "Vote tallying could present another fiasco"
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11:55 AM MST on Wed., Jun. 6, 2007
re: "Virginia primaries open to all voters, regardless of party"
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2:07 PM MST on Fri., Apr. 20, 2007
re: "House passes District voting rights bill"
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ilsun said:
. DEAR SIR/MADAM I SUPPORT THE WORLDWIDE CAMPAIGN AGAINST TORTURE AND ABUSE USING DIRECTED ENERGY AND NEUROLOGICAL WEAPONS I would like to draw your attention to some extreme and horrendous criminality being conducted with the involvement of United States Government-related Agencies and the complicity, if not participation, of many other governments and security agencies. I am a victim of torture and abuse using DIRECTED ENERGY and NEUROLOGICAL WEAPONS technology. The criminal use of these on me are causing the following effects - 1. Sleep deprivation 2. Reading thoughts remotely 3. Causing pain in any nerve of the body 4. Computer- brain interference, control and communication. There is massive ignorance and secrecy regarding this, and victims such as I are being subjected to uncontrolled and unacknowledged torture and mental and physical destruction. This has remained completely unreported and undiscussed publicly. There are many others, all over the world, who ar
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Jiminy Cricket said:
What a wicked we weave !!!- The Supes were warned not to buy these bogus systems - but except for Ammiano and Daly, they did it anyway .. The shame !! Now SF is the biggest fool as they too are in the HAVA trap - Bob Ney paved the way for the big $ vendors to skim the cream - billions of our tax dollars sent to the boys in the back. We must make a stand against the black hats and take back our democracy- He who counts the votes must not be allowed to skate away- JC
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Steve Rankin, Jackson, Mississippi said:
The Virginia Republicans' lawsuit against their open-primary law is now in the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond. It's based largely on the US Supreme Court's 2000 ruling in the California case that you noted. The lower court held in the Virginia case that, when a party is forced to nominate by primary, the party decides who votes in that primary. This was the first time any court had ever said that there is a situation in which the state may not require a party to hold an open primary. The Mississippi Democrats' similar open-primary lawsuit will be heard by the US District Court on July 30. If the courts outlaw state-mandated open primaries-- as I believe they will-- each party will be free to determine who votes in its primaries. Utah, e.g., registers voters by party. The Republicans there invite independents to vote in their primaries, whereas the Democrats invite ALL voters into their primaries.
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Zeadman said:
mmmmmmmmmm interesting. i am a republican populist moderate. i think that most people in the us are now that. any way i believe that the district should be treated as any other district in any state in the Union. it is a district just like the first district of Utah. or Iowa or Idaho...... so yes it is good that they now have a vote even thow they have always had a vote because of what they are. they are a district out side of a state. thats is all they deserve a vote just like us. thanks -Zeadman
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