WASHINGTON — The people of the District of Columbia were closer Tuesday to gaining the voting rights they were deprived of more than two centuries ago after the Senate agreed to take up a bill giving them a fully vested representative in Congress.
The Senate vote to debate the bill sets the stage for more legislative hurdles and a probable court challenge if the bill is enacted into law. But with the Senate action, D.C.’s 600,000 residents have their best chance of securing a real voice in Congress since a proposed constitutional amendment to enfranchise the federal capital failed a quarter-century ago.
“All lights are on go. There can be no turning back now,” said Eleanor Holmes Norton, the district’s nonvoting delegate in the House since 1991.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the vote was “a very big step toward addressing a wrong.”
Congress, in enacting an 1801 law defining congressional jurisdiction over the new capital, did not provide district residents with a vote.
The bill would give the district a vote in the House starting January 2011. To offset the near-certain choice of a Democrat for D.C., it adds a fourth seat for Republican-leaning Utah, bringing House membership to 437.
The Senate vote was emblematic of the shifts in power in Congress. Two years ago, after the House passed the bill, the Senate fell three votes short of the 60 needed to end a Republican-led filibuster. This year, with seven more Democrats in the Senate, the vote to take up the bill was 62-34. Eight Republicans voted to consider the legislation, while two Democrats opposed it. Colorado’s senators, both of whom are Democrats, voted in favor.
