Katrina vanden Heuvel: DC Voting Rights Tour: First Stop, New Hampshire

from The Nation:



DC Voting Rights Tour: First Stop, New Hampshire



In September, a House-approved bill granting 600,000 citizens in the District of Columbia a voting representative in Congress for the first time, fell just 3 votes shy of overcoming a Republican filibuster for an up or down vote in the Senate. Republican Sen. Orin Hatch declared that the tactic of filibustering against civil rights had been "resurrected" and DC Mayor Adrian Fenty observed that "not since segregation has the Senate blocked a voting rights bill."

DC Councilman David Catania was there when the vote went down and he decided to take action. As he told the Washington Post, "We've talked ourselves to death about this issue, but we need to take our show on the road and build allies."

Catania reached out to New Hampshire state Representative Cindy Rosenwald who serves with him on the National Legislative Association on Prescription Drug Prices (a group Catania spokesman Ben Young told me doesn't make them too popular with Inside-the-Beltway folks!). At Catania's urging, Rosenwald crafted a resolution for the New Hampshire legislature that Young said "expresses regret" that New Hampshire Senators John Sununu and Judd Gregg "voted to deny the District of Columbia the right to be represented in Congress." Young noted that once Rosenwald decided to proceed, voting rights advocacy organization DC Vote was instrumental in the effort.

"We've been in constant contact with Rep. Rosenwald and helped to prepare for Wednesday's hearing ," DC Vote Executive Director Ilir Zherka told me. "We've also helped to promote the legislation to the media there and here in DC."

New Hampshire's House committee on state-federal relations will hear testimony on the resolution on Wednesday – the day after the primary – and witnesses will include Fenty, Catania, and Zherka. In all, the mayor, nine councilmen and the DC shadow (non-voting) congressional delegation will attend the hearing. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut?bid=7&pid=267502

The fact that hundreds of thousands of citizens have no voting representation is one of this country's shames.