Statement of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton on the Critical Cloture Vote (2/24/09)

Statement of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton on the Critical Cloture for the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act

February 24, 2009

Following a Senate vote on cloture, 62-34, today, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) released the following statement:

The District, for whom not even easy things come easily, celebrates two great victories today. We have won a long and hard-fought battle, winning a 62-34 Senate vote invoking cloture and allowing the debate to begin on the bill. The number included two new Republicans, Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), along with Orrin Hatch (R-Ut.), Susan Collins, (R-Maine), Richard Lugar (R-Indiana), Olympia Snowe (R-Mn.), Arlen Spector (R-Penn.), and George Voinovich (R-Oh.). An hour earlier, we celebrated a formal unveiling of the Duke Ellington circulating coin at the Smithsonian's Museum of American History during a Black History month celebration of our native son, only the second African American to appear on a circulating coin.

For the District of Columbia, however, today's vote is in a class by itself in the history of our city and our country. We owe the victory to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and especially to the indefatigable manager of the bill, Chairman Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), whose energetic leadership has been the indispensable ingredient for today's success. Senator Hatch has never wavered and he has our lasting gratitude. We thank Mayor Adrian Fenty, who started his term as mayor crusading for the bill and was on the Senate Floor today, D.C. City Council Chair Vincent Gray, and the Council members who adjourned council business today, to show a united government for this bill in the Senate.

Notwithstanding the usual amendments designed to break our will and break American principles embodied in our bill, D.C. elected officials and residents have already shown we can handle whatever masquerades as an obstacle. With the House scheduled to vote the District of Columbia House Voting Rights bill to the Floor tomorrow, all lights are on go. There can be no turning back now.