Norton Finds Several Different Ways to Pass D.C. Voting Rights Bill (10/15/09)

Norton’s Efforts for a Clean Voting Rights Bill Yields Many Different Approaches Now Under Consideration

October 15, 2009

WASHINGTON, DC - Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) has spent the last few months investigating ways to pass a clean D.C. House Voting Rights Act. It has been well worth the search because she has found a variety of different ways to get the job done. Today, during the weekly House Floor colloquy on pending matters, Majority House Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) was asked whether the D.C. House Voting Rights bill would be included in the Defense Appropriations Conference report. Congressman Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), speaking for the Republicans, said that his concern was placing an unrelated matter in a bill involving our troops. The Majority Leader made a number of significant points. For example, he indicated that our soldiers had fought, died, and succeeded in getting the vote for the people of Bagdad, the capital of Iraq, while the people of our own nation’s capital remained without a similar vote. He reminded the Republican leader that it was they who put extraneous matters on the D.C. House Voting Rights bill. The Majority Leader also asked the Republican leader several times whether he would support a clean voting rights bill in light of his concern about extraneous matters. This question appeared to end the Republican challenge, but without any Republican concession on the voting rights issue.

The challenge can be viewed at:

https://www.c-spanarchives.org/congress/?q=node/69850&date=2009-10-15

(Scroll down the page to the final “McCarthy-Hoyer” exchange.)