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Pr. George’s Co. Council backs giving D.C. a vote
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Related Topics: Prince George’s County
Prince George’s County (Map, News) - Prince George’s County Council members passed a resolution Tuesday in support of getting the residents of the District of Columbia a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives.
“I think it’s the right thing to do,” said Council Vice Chair David Harrington, the resolution’s main sponsor.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.’s representative in the House, said giving Washington residents a vote would benefit their neighbors in Prince George’s.
“I think you could expect that we are in the same part of the political spectrum as most Prince George’s residents are,” she told The Examiner, “and that reinforces and adds a vote to the position of most Prince George’s residents.”
The council took the action a day before the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee was scheduled to vote on whether to move the bill to the floor. The bill, which the House already has passed, would expand the House by two seats, one for the District and the other for Utah.
Holmes Norton said she was “delighted” by Harrington’s decision to introduce the resolution.
“It does show me that our bill has now got a life of its own because nobody called the council member to ask that it be done,” she said.
But Holmes Norton said she isn’t surprised about Prince George’s support. “Many of them are from D.C.,” Holmes Norton said. “And many of their relatives still live in D.C. We call them Ward 9 and consider them one of us.”
U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., told The Examiner that he is “strongly in support” of the voting rights bill.
Although he thinks giving Washingtonians a representative is “more of a human rights issue,” Cardin said it would also give a vote to another person “who understands our region.”
Ilir Zherka, executive director of voting-rights organization DC Vote, said, “Having a vote in the House and over time representation in the Senate will strengthen the hand of the regional governments.”
dfowler@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
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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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