D.C. Voting Rights Bill Introduced in Senate

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IT ONLY TAKES ONE SENATOR to derail any legislation. It takes 60 votes to stop a filibuster. What might it take to get bipartisan D.C. voting rights legislation through the Senate? Getting the support of Utah's senior senator, Republican Orrin Hatch is a start, but it's no guarantee, for sure.

The chamber is governed by so many rules and procedural traditions that it's anyone's guess as to what will happen to the pending bill that would give the District a full and equal vote in the House. While Democrats hold a slim majority in the Senate, the minority leader, Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell — or conceivably anyone else in the chamber who opposes the plan — could foil the plans of voting rights advocates, who have been eager ever since similar legislation cleared the House last month.

On Monday, Connecticut Sen.Joe Lieberman (pictured at left), the Independent Democrat who chairs the committee with jurisdiction over District matters, introduced D.C. voting rights legislation with Hatch (pictured at right), a key across-the-aisle co-sponsor. Hatch, former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, represents a state that would benefit from the District voting rights legislation and is someone who, as The Post's Mary Beth Sheridan reports, "could be an influential counterweight to those who have called the bill unconstitutional."

Some feel that the Beehive State was denied a House seat it deserved during the 2000 U.S. Census. According to the legislation, if the Democratic-leaning District gets a vote, then Republican-leaning Utah would get a vote. But critics point to constitutional concerns in addition to a threatened White House veto.

Regardless of the threat, Lieberman plans a hearing on the legislation this month in the Government Affairs and Homeland Security Committee. Stay tuned ...

» "D.C. Vote Bill Gets Key GOP Support" [WaPo]
» "With Push for D.C. Vote, Why Utah?" [Free Ride/Express]

Photo by Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post