Press Conference with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Senator Joseph Lieberman (ID-CT), Mayor Adrian Fenty (D-DC), And Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC)

Press Conference

PRESS CONFERENCE WITH SENATE MAJORITY LEADER HARRY REID (D-NV), SENATOR JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (ID-CT), MAYOR ADRIAN FENTY (D-DC), AND DELEGATE ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON (D-DC)

SUBJECT: D.C. VOTING REPRESENTATION IN THE HOUSE OF REP.S

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SEN. REID: (In progress) -- Representative Norton and the mayor to get big heads. I told them the crowd's always this big, so -- .

This morning we had a vote that gave us a big first step toward addressing a wrong that's been going on for centuries and is really offensive to all democratic principles and to the American people, and especially the citizens of the District of Columbia.

People who live in the District of Columbia pay taxes just like Senator Lieberman and I do, the people of our states. The people of the District of Columbia have been involved, just like people from Nevada and Connecticut, in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But they haven't had a basic civil right that people of Nevada and Connecticut have had -- the right to vote.

All the arguments I've heard about giving 600,000 Americans equal rights are disingenuous. Senator Lieberman and I are both lawyers, and we smiled at each other: Any time that anyone raises on the Senate floor the issue that it's unconstitutional, you'll know the merits aren't on their side.

The bill before the Senate is fair, it's bipartisan and it's long overdue. If we can send American soldiers to fight for democracy around the world and ensure citizens of other nations that they have a right to vote, the least we can give to the citizens of the District of Columbia is the same right.

Senator Lieberman?

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Thank you very much, Senator Reid.

Thanks, first, for scheduling floor time for the D.C. Voting Rights Act. For a senator, there's no greater gift than floor time. And this is the donor. So we're grateful that Senator Reid has spoken loudly about the importance he gives voting rights for residents of the District by scheduling floor time.

I thank Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton for the persistent, steadfast, principled, feisty fight that she has waged for justice for the people that she represents -- but not fully, because we have not given her a vote on the House floor.

And I thank Mayor Adrian Fenty for being a very strong leader on behalf of his people in this cause, which is a very just cause.

Sometimes an injustice persists so long that we begin to accept it, and forget how unjust it is. But when you think about it, it's unbelievable that there are 600,000 Americans who don't have voting representation in the Congress of the United States, and that those 600,000 people happen to live in the capital of what we proudly call the greatest democracy in the world.

The fact is that we are the only democracy in the world that denies voting representation in the national legislative body to residents of our capital city.

This injustice has to end.

And I think today we took a very important first step to ending it. The vote to stop the filibuster against this D.C. Voting Rights Act was strong, and it was bipartisan. We got eight Republicans to joint us on this, because though people may make partisan arguments about it, ultimately this is about justice, this is about democracy, this is about the integrity of our system.

So if there ever was a case where it ain't over till it's over, this is it. But I think we come out of the vote this morning with some real momentum. And under Senator Reid's leadership, we hope to get this bill passed out of the Senate, hopefully before the end of this week. Thank you.

Congresswoman Norton.

DEL. NORTON: Thank you very much, Senator Lieberman, the manager of the bill, to whom we owe so very much. (Chuckles.)

You know, Senator Lieberman talked about how -- and it's true -- you know, the country's gotten used to second-class citizens for the District of Columbia, but I can assure you that 600,000 residents of this city wake up every day thinking about their status. I go nowhere in this city without residents saying to me, "Congresswoman, when is our vote coming?"

They are the inheritors of this question, because it was first raised in 1801, when Congress broke faith with the Framers, who expected that the vote would be given by the Congress, when in fact the Congress took jurisdiction over the capital they had created on the war slogan of "No taxation without representation."

And we recognize -- (chuckles) -- things don't come easily to the District. However, we celebrate actually two great victories today. There is nothing to equal the long and hard-fought battle that brought forward a 62-34 vote to invoke cloture allowing us to debate, only allowing us to debate whether the citizens of the nation's capital should have voting rights, yet that was the critical vote in this process.

We are pleased that the number included two new Republicans, Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, along with my good friend, my close friend now for many years and a co-sponsor of this bill, Senator Orrin Hatch, and Senators Susan Collins, Richard Lugar, Olympia Snowe, Arlen Specter, George Voinovich.

An hour before the vote, we celebrated another victory that, like the vote, took a long time, and that's a small insignia of our inclusion in these United States, the unveiling of a coin, a simple coin representing the District of Columbia that was the formal unveiling of the Duke Ellington circulating coin -- an hour before this vote, our native son, the musical genius Duke Ellington, only the second African American to appear on a circulating coin. Somehow, this all has come together for us.

We recognize, though, that today's cloture vote is in a class by itself. And we know just who we owe this victory to: first, to the majority leader to my right; to the majority whip, Dick Durbin; especially to the indefatigable manager of the bill, Chairman Joe Lieberman, whose energetic leadership has been the indispensable ingredient of the bill; and, of course, to my close friend long before this vote involved the state of Utah, Senator Orrin Hatch.

We also thank the mayor of the city, to my left, who started his term in Congress as a crusader for this bill and was on the floor today as well; and to D.C. City Council Chair Vincent Gray and the council members who came -- adjourned the council to show one united government of the District of Columbia on the Hill for the vote.

Notwithstanding the usual amendments that will come, designed to break our will and to break with the American principles embodied in the bill, our D.C. elected officials, especially our residents, and, of course, the many supporters we gathered from around the country have already shown by today's vote and by this long fight that we are ready for whatever masquerades as an obstacle.

With the House scheduled now -- in a competition, Mr. Leader -- (chuckles) -- to vote the District of Columbia House voting rights bill to the floor tomorrow, we see all lights on "go," and we say, without fear of contradiction, there can be no turning back now.

MAYOR FENTY (?): Hear, hear.

DEL. NORTON: Thank you.

Our mayor, Mayor Adrian Fenty.

MAYOR FENTY: Thank you very much.

Today is a breakthrough in the full franchise of the people of the District of Columbia. Today is also a day where we begin this last chapter in fulfilling the promise of the founders of this country, that no American citizen would pay federal taxes but would go without representation in their national legislature.

I was here two years ago on the floor of the Senate when we fell three votes short. That was following great leadership by Congresswoman Norton, by Congressman Davis, by my own predecessor, Anthony Williams, and by former City Council Chairwoman Linda Cropp. We fell three votes short that day, but I think everyone knew that the spirit of the people of the District of Columbia was not to be denied and that we would be back.

And we come back today with five more votes in the affirmative but with a lot of work having been done in between.

The congresswoman has talked about the amazing work of our majority leader. The people of the District of Columbia thank him, as we thank both Senator Durbin and Chairman Lieberman, for getting us to this point. They have taken on this issue as if their own personal vote had been denied in Congress.

The same is true of so many of the other senators who voted today. And of course, we need to thank also the administration under President Obama, who has supported this not only now but when he was a United States senator, and we were all here two years ago.

Everyone knows the story. But it deserves to be quickly repeated. The people of the District of Columbia have gone without a vote in Congress for 200 years. All the while, they have fought in every war in this country. All the while, we have paid more federal taxes per capita than most states. And we have served in ever other way that American citizens have been asked.

It is only fitting that at the end of this road, the residents of the District of Columbia have the same vote and representation in Congress as any other American citizen. We know that we have a long way until we get to that point. But again today is an amazing step forward.

I think it propels us on the road towards getting a vote in the House of Representatives. And again I think it capitalizes on what is great momentum, electricity and energy in this city right now, about maintaining and claiming our full franchise.

So thank you very much. And we will be here, over the next couple of days, as this is taken up in the Senate.

(Cross talk.)

Q Why not bring that up?

SEN. REID: Well, let's try to get this done. I'm for full statehood but, you know, always have been. But we'll just try to get this done.

Yeah.

Q Leader Reid, given that all members of Congress come from states, and that the Constitution says that they are elected by the people of the federal states, where does the authority come from to grant a member to D.C., which isn't a state?

SEN. REID: Joe?

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Very briefly. It's an important argument, but the question is answered this way: It's in the "District clause." It's in the "District clause," that says Congress has the right to legislate with matters -- I'm paraphrasing, of course -- regarding the District of Columbia. And there are a very critical series of Supreme Court cases that have used that clause to effectively treat the District of Columbia as a state regarding the Interstate Commerce Clause, the right to trial by jury, et cetera, et cetera.

So we're building on a precedent that the Supreme Court has set. And I think there's even more justice in this argument because the reality today is that the District's residents are deprived of the basic constitutional right to be represented here in Congress.

Think of the frustration. I mean, what -- somebody said we were acting as if this was personal. It IS personal. I'm just -- I think myself, if I were Eleanor, and you get a chance to participate in the debate, but then the vote, the roll is called and you -- you can't do anything.

So, bottom line, we've got a lot of constitutional precedent on our behalf. We have a wide-ranging group of constitutional scholars who supports our belief that the "District clause" prevails here, and those include, as Dick Durbin said, Judge Ken Starr, with whom, as Dick said, he doesn't normally agree.

Q Are you worried that the --

Q Senator Reid, could you please talk about the amendments (you have placed ?) on the bill?

SEN. REID: Well, we Democrats are going to have none. We feel that this bill is long overdue. And I would just indicate, in addition to what Senator Lieberman said, I am convinced that any time that someone goes to the floor and starts talking about the constitutionality of legislation, the merits do not lie with them.

This is an issue of basic fairness. There are more than a half a million people who live in the District of Columbia, the nation's capital, and they can't vote? It doesn't make sense.

So I don't -- I don't know what amendments are going to be offered by the Republicans. I hope they would -- I hope -- I hope they would be constructive.

Q Senator Reid, to that end, do you see this challenge going to the Supreme Court? Let's say it passes -- (off mike) -- the bottom line, would you see Republicans going to the Supreme Court, where it is a different ballgame?

Do you see that happening?

SEN. REID: It's very possible. But I'm confident, very, very confident, that the vote of the people of this country, as seen through the Congress of the United States, a bill signed by the president -- I think that clearly that victory will be won in the Supreme Court.

(Cross talk.)

Q Even though the federal courts ruled against --

SEN. REID: Okay.

Q Senator Reid, are you most concerned about the gun amendments, a gun amendment that would peel off some Democrats, naturally?

SEN. REID: Well, we're not going to prejudge what the Republicans are going to do. We know that the vast majority of them don't want this legislation to pass. I think that's too bad.

But we have a stalwart number of Republican senators -- this is truly a bipartisan bill -- and we feel confident that any mischievous amendments will be tabled.

Q Senator Reid --

Q Senator Reid, on the -- (inaudible) -- bill --

SEN. REID: Yes?

Q In the omnibus bill, there is about $8 billion of earmarks. And I'm curious to know, in light of this economic downturn, how do members of Congress justify having that much pork in the bill? And if I could also ask you, sir, you obviously -- you seemed to have a pretty serious conversation with Senator Burris today. Could you tell us what your message was to him?

SEN. REID: Okay, let's see if I can figure out what you asked. First of all, I don't know about your numbers, but understand this: Since we have been -- we're talking here a little about framing and our Framers, our Founding Fathers. From the very beginning of this country, we've had three separate and equal branches of government.

In recent years, during the Bush years, because of the scandals created by the Republicans in earmarking, and as typified by the Abramoff scandal, we have not been able to do our appropriation process in appropriate manner.

But we understand that it got way out of hand with congressional directed spending with the Republicans. Therefore, we have cut back by 50 percent the number of earmarks, and we've cut back from 4 percent to 1 percent of the total package.

These are things -- congressionally mandated spending is part of our job. That's what we do. We shouldn't depend on bureaucrats downtown to take our -- care of our individual states.

So we believe this bill, which has been on the Web for some time -- everybody's been able to look at it -- it is truly a bill that has been -- involved Republicans, Democrats, not for a day, not for a week, but for months now. Every subcommittee chairman has worked with their counterpart in the House and in the Senate. It's a good piece of legislation. We need to get back to appropriating again.

Now, your last question dealt with my conversation on the Senate floor with Senator Burris. I said, "How was your break?" He said -- he said, "Fine. How was yours?" I said, "Fine." Okay?

Q Senator --

Q Leader Reid? Leader --

SEN. REID: Yes.

Q Senator McConnell --

SEN. REID: Oh, I'm sorry.

Q -- expressed frustration about the omnibus, saying that there's too much spending in it, while he wouldn't say what was wrong specifically. Do you have the Republican votes to invoke cloture and move forward and get the bill done?

SEN. REID: We're going to do our best. It's the right thing to do.

Senator McConnell has been kept advised of everything done in this legislation. He is a member of the Appropriations Committee. And I'm sure that his work -- in the Appropriations Committee he was able to raise any issues that he had at the time.

One last question.

Q Senator Reid? Senator Reid, when (can ?) you schedule that final vote -- or the final package?

SEN. REID: We hope to do it on Thursday.

Q Will there be another cloture vote, do you think?

SEN. REID: Well, I hope not. But we -- if necessary, we'll have another cloture vote.

Thanks, everybody.

Q Thank you.

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