Activists See Gains In Quest For Vote
After Setback, D.C. Advocates Look to 2009

Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer

In the 1970s, D.C. voting rights activists tried in vain to amend the U.S. Constitution. In 1993, the city's bid for statehood was rebuffed by the House. And now a D.C. vote bill has been blocked by Republican senators.

Will the District ever get a vote in Congress?

Proponents remain optimistic. They have revived a movement considered moribund just a few years ago. And, although prospects in the current Congress look dim, many believe next year's national elections could boost Democrats, who have pushed for more representation for the city.

But the quest remains bedeviled by three problems that have persisted for decades. First is partisanship: Republicans are reluctant to help create seats in the House or Senate for a strongly Democratic city. Second is a lack of national awareness that D.C. residents lack a vote in Congress. And, finally, city dwellers have failed to raise enough of an outcry that Congress feels pressure to act.

"We're in a better position today than for the last 30 years," said Bernard Demczuk, a leading D.C. voting rights activist in the early 1990s. But the issue still hasn't galvanized the city's nearly 600,000 residents, he said.

"We're not angry enough," he said. "I think there are 1,500 people who are angry."

The current bill was the first D.C. voting rights measure to pass the House and reach the Senate in nearly three decades. It was designed to assuage partisan concerns by pairing a House seat for the liberal District with one for Republican-leaning Utah, which just missed getting a fourth representative after the last census.

The bill did not seek two senators for the city, which could give Democrats a powerful boost in that 100-member body.

Still, some Republicans voiced suspicion that the measure could eventually lead to senators for the District, too. Only eight Republicans voted to begin action on the bill in a critical roll call Sept. 18, while 41 were opposed. All but two of the 51 Democrats voted in favor. Altogether, the bill fell three votes short of the 60 necessary to overcome a Republican filibuster.

Partisanship is even more pronounced today than it was in 1978, when Congress approved a constitutional amendment granting the District full Senate and House representation. At that time, the Republican Party even backed the measure in its platform. Republican lawmakers, then a distinct minority in both chambers, were roughly split on the amendment.

"That was before Republicans had a shot at real power," said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), who created the current compromise bill. Now that the balance in Congress is very close, Davis said, "it just becomes much more difficult, unfortunately."

The constitutional amendment ultimately failed in 1985 after being ratified by only 16 of the required 38 states. Supporters offered several explanations for the state legislatures' hostility, including racism and fear that D.C. representatives would support issues important to big cities, such as gun control.

Party politics also contributed. As Ann Heuer, then-chairman of the D.C. Republican Committee, put it at the time: "Essentially, some states have argued they don't want any more representatives from the Democratic Party."

This time around, Republican congressional leaders and the White House strongly opposed the bill to give the District a voting House seat. Their main argument was that, by giving House representation to a non-state, the bill violated the Constitution.

Activists working with the advocacy group DC Vote have tried to win over lawmakers through an energetic lobbying and education campaign. The bill's supporters enlisted prominent Republicans such as former congressman Jack Kemp and Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (Utah), as well as Republican legal icons such as Kenneth W. Starr, the former special prosecutor, who argued that the bill was in fact constitutional.

But legislators still face little pressure from the public. Although DC Vote has built a nationwide coalition of civil rights, religious and labor organizations, the issue remains little known in much of the country, Davis and others said.

"From the Republican point of view, they feel it's a free vote" with no consequences from their constituents, Davis said. "As long as it's a free vote, they're going to be subject to party pressures."

Even in the District, many residents appear indifferent. Although Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) led several thousand demonstrators down Pennsylvania Avenue in a voting rights march in April, activists have struggled to awaken the kind of public outrage that keeps the issue front and center.

"People had for so long lived in this sort of horrible arrangement, they had accepted this second-class citizenship," said Sharon Pratt, who served as D.C. mayor from 1991 to 1995 and has supported the current bill.

That could be starting to change, she said.

"I think what we did see with this last effort was a growth in numbers," Pratt said.

Despite the Senate setback, the latest effort is by no means over. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), a co-sponsor of the measure, said he'll try to pick up a few key votes in the next year. If that fails, he said, "I will be ready to start this again in the 111th Congress," beginning in 2009.

Voting rights activists predict next year's elections will result in a Senate -- and possibly a White House -- more favorable to the bill.

"Conventional wisdom right now would be that issues like D.C. voting rights are going to have significantly more support in 2009 than they do now," said Lloyd Leonard, a lobbyist for the League of Women Voters, which worked to rally support for the bill.

Meanwhile, voting rights supporters appear better positioned than ever to carry on a drawn-out campaign. DC Vote has a full-time staff and an annual budget of $1.8 million, mostly from foundations.

In contrast, the voting rights campaign of the late 1970s was so underfunded that city officials staged a "Gong Show" to raise money -- complete with a disco-dancing Mayor Marion Barry. That campaign eventually splintered into feuding camps.

Some of those opposed to the current bill are urging other alternatives, which they say are more constitutionally sound. Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) plans to offer a new constitutional amendment providing voting rights to the District. Others have suggested that D.C. residents become Maryland voters.

But for now, those ideas appear to have little political backing.

"Let's do it through simple legislation. That is what is almost within our grasp right now," said Walter Smith, executive director of the D.C. Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, a supporter of the D.C. vote bill.

Though disappointed that the bill has stalled, Smith said he was not discouraged.

"One or two more years for those of us working on this for 10 [years] -- we can wait," he said. "Because we're going to get there."