Norton Submits Detailed Proposals to Pass the DC House Voting Rights Act (6/25/09)
Norton Submits Detailed Proposals to Pass the D.C. House Voting Rights Act
June 25, 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D.C.) submitted a detailed proposal to House and Senate leaders for passage of the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act earlier this week, and has since had conversations with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). "I am very encouraged by the response of our two leaders and by their assurances," Norton said. Understandably, however, the Congresswoman has not made public the details of the proposals while they are being considered.
After a four-month wait, Norton received official word that the House could not round up the votes necessary for passage of a clean voting rights bill without attaching a dangerous gun amendment. With only a few days notice of available time before the floor became crowded with appropriations and similar bills, Norton took the option of taking time to consider other ways or compromises to get the bill done, after consultation with the bill's major advocates. Norton and her staff then began a rigorous search and detailed analysis of options and believe that the proposals that emerged and the responses she received have made the effort well worth the time used finding other ways to accomplish the goal.
In her letter to Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Hoyer, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Norton wrote, "Neither the bill's major supporters nor I can accept-and we appreciate that you have not asked us to accept-delaying indefinitely another effort to pass the bill...We believe it is important to get the bill or some version of it through both houses in the coming months, considering the clear majorities in the Senate and House that already have demonstrated strong support for the bill. Also considering a president poised to sign it, and the many years of tireless efforts by D.C. residents and Americans throughout the country." Norton commended Hoyer's success in finding a way out of a similar gun dilemma when the voting rights bill was initially stopped in the House in 2007 and she had hoped for a similar outcome this year.
The NRA gun attachment at issue would strip the District of its gun safety laws and of jurisdiction to enact new laws concerning guns. The attachment also would prohibit limitations on assault weapons and other guns and on who may own them. Norton's proposals look for ways to keep the NRA from taking down a major civil rights bill while exposing hometown D.C. and official Washington to significant new and increased risks. "Pro-gun Democrats and other Democrats alike are fed up, as you must surely be, with splits in our caucus continually caused by NRA intrusion on our priorities," Norton wrote. Democrats have made D.C. voting rights "a stated goal" for years, even incorporating it into the Democratic platform for decades. "We have come too far to let this priority fade without doing more," she wrote.