DC House Voting Rights Bill of 2007

D.C. HOUSE VOTING RIGHTS BILL OF 2007

* Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, the bipartisan bill we introduce today is a culmination of four years of during which Democrats and Republicans have worked together to accomplish a common goal for Utah and the District of Columbia. This effort has been worth every minute, as we are poised to clear the high hurdle to equal citizenship in the People's House--the House of Representatives. Representative TOM DAVIS (R-VA) and I have worked together on many tough bills and have gotten a fair number passed. Still, the bill we introduce today has surely been the toughest, has required the most work for us both, and has taken the most time. I am most grateful to Representative DAVIS who found the balance that makes this bill possible, modeled most recently on Alaska and Hawaii, both admitted to the Union in 1959 after Congress assured itself that their entry would benefit both parties. TOM DAVIS did not stop with his good idea but has worked relentlessly to reach this milestone. Speaker NANCY PELOSI has long fought for the rights of D.C. residents. It was she who personally insisted that this legislation go forward without delay as a bill of historic importance. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, my regional friend for years, has been an especially outspoken champion of this bill. Throughout this process Chairman HENRY WAXMAN (D-CA) has been a central figure, making every possible effort to ensure we would reach this day. From the very beginning, Chairman JOHN CONYERS (D-MI) as a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus and a member of the Judiciary Committee has fought for our full rights throughout his years in Congress, pressing all along until as chair he will now preside over the committee that will send this bill to the floor. Governor Jon Huntsman Jr. and the entire Utah delegation have been steadfast and determined throughout.

* TOM and I have understood that the essential metric required bringing both parties with us, not only bipartisanship in the usual sense but equivalence, that is no partisan gain and no partisan disadvantage. We have gone through many variations, beginning with TOM's original proposal, where the D.C. House seat would have included some Maryland residents. TOM then accepted our notion that a D.C. stand-alone seat would be best and less controversial all around, and the talks and proposals proceeded. We since have tried several scenarios for moving the bill. I continued to keep my bill, the No Taxation Without Representation Act for the full representation that will never abandon until a bill agreeable to all could be fashioned.

* The District of Columbia has waited 200 years to gain the equal citizenship rights they deserve and seek. The framers were clear that American citizens are entitled to equal representation in the House. Our status as second in the United States in federal income taxes that support our government argues indisputably for equivalent rights. However, in this time of war with residents serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, our bill for congressional voting rights for D.C. residents must and I believe will not be denied.

* Finally, I hope I can be forgiven a personal moment. Throughout this process, I have never referred to the District's vote as my vote or what the vote would mean to me personally because it will not belong to me. I have never mentioned the special reason I personally wanted to be the first to cast that vote because this bill is for D.C. residents now and in the future, not for me. However, my 16 years in Congress has been defined by the search for some way to get full representation for the city where my family has lived since before the Civil War. That search has included the two-day debate followed by a vote on statehood more than 10 years ago, and the vote I won in the Committee of the Whole. The struggle has been driven by its own terms, by the here and now. Yet, I cannot deny the personal side of this quest, epitomized by my family of native Washingtonians, my father Coleman Holmes, my grandfather, Richard Holmes, who entered the D.C. Fire Department in 1902 and whose picture hangs in my office, a gift from the D.C. Fire Department, but especially my great-grandfather, Richard Holmes, a slave who walked off a Virginia plantation in the 1850s, made it to Washington, and settled our family here. By definition, subliminal motivation is unknown and unfelt. However, when TOM and I knew that we had reached the best agreement we could, I thought openly of my family. I thought especially of the man I never knew. I thought of Richard Holmes, a slave in the District until Lincoln freed the slaves here nine months before the Emancipation Proclamation. I thought of my great grandfather who came here in a furtive search for freedom itself, not the vote on the House floor. I thought of what a man who lived as a slave in the District, and others like him would think if his great-granddaughter becomes the first to cast the first full vote for the District of Columbia on the House floor. I hope to have the special honor of casting the vote I have sought for 16 years. I want to cast that vote for the residents of this city whom I have had the great privilege of representing and who have fought and have waited for so long. Yes, and I want to cast that vote in memory of my great-grandfather, Richard Holmes.

http://thomas.loc.gov