• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About
  • Press Room
  • Poverty & Race Journal
  • Donate
  • Publications
    • PRRAC Publications & PRRAC Authors
    • PRRAC Policy Briefs
    • PRRAC Advocacy Resources
    • PRRAC Advocacy Letters
  • Events
  • Contact

PRRAC — Connecting Research to Advocacy

Poverty & Race Research Action Council

MENUMENU
  • Fair Housing
    • Fair Housing Homepage
    • Federal Housing Advocacy – by Program
    • Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH)
    • Housing Mobility & the Housing Choice Voucher Program
    • Source of Income Discrimination
    • Low Income Housing Tax Credit
    • Fair Housing and Community Development
    • Civil Rights and Housing Finance Reform
  • School Diversity
    • School Diversity
    • NCSD Website
  • Housing-Schools Intersections
  • Special Projects
    • Civil Rights History
    • Civil Rights & The Administrative State
    • Environmental Justice
    • Expanding the "Social Housing" Sector
    • International Human Rights and U.S. Civil Rights Policy
    • One Nation Indivisible: School Diversity, Immigrant Integration, and Multi-Racial Coalitions
    • PRRAC in the Courts
    • Alliance Housing Justice
  • Search
    • Search

You are here: Home / Browse PRRAC Content / Poverty & Race Journal / Civil Rights History / “Democracy for DC?” (January-February 2007 P&R Issue)

“Democracy for DC?” (January-February 2007 P&R Issue)

February 1, 2007 by

H.R. 5388, the District of Columbia Fair and Equal Voting Rights Act of 2006, was introduced in the 109th Congress by Republican Congressman Thomas Davis III, representing suburban Virginia, and DC Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton—who can sponsor legislation and vote in committees but not on the floor where legislation is finally enacted or rejected. It would provide the nearly 600,000 residents of the nation’s capital for the first time with voting representation in the House (but not the Senate—we can, happily, vote for President, thanks to the 23rd Amendment, ratified in 1961, but a 1978 proposed Constitutional amendment to give the District two Senators and one House member, approved by Congress, failed to receive ratification by two-thirds of the states). Since the new Representative would undoubtedly be a Democrat, the political solution was to give Utah (the state that came closest in the 2000 Census to gaining an additional House member, feels it got shortchanged by that Census in not counting as part of its population its many residents working abroad as missionaries, and is a state that just as undoubtedly would elect a Republican) an extra House member as well (increasing the House size from 435 to 437).The bipartisan negotiations around H.R. 5388 involved agreement with the Utah legislature and governor on a Congressional map for that state that will not disadvantage any current House member.

While far from an ideal solution to DC’s “taxation without representation” status (that motto appears on the District’s vehicle license plates)—we still are frozen out of representation in the Senate, despite having a larger population than several states, paying higher per capita federal taxes than many states, having more combat deaths and casualties than many states; and it is only a several-year fix—it was a start. As the U.S. Supreme Court noted in its landmark 1964 voting rights case, Wesberry v. Sanders: “No right is more precious in a free country than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws under which we, as good citizens, must live. Other rights, even the most basic, are illusory if the right to vote is undermined. Our Constitution leaves no room for classification in a way that unnecessarily abridges that right.”

Although H.R. 5388 cleared the House Government Reform Committee last May by a 29-4 vote, it never was acted on by the full House (afterward, it would need Senate and Presidential approval). The Republican House leadership decided not to bring the bill to the floor for a vote during the final lame-duck session of the 109th Congress. Davis and Norton have pledged to bring the same bill before the 110th Congress as soon as possible. We’ll keep you posted.
[10200]

Filed Under: Civil Rights History, Civil Rights History

You might also like…

“Neighborhood Schools – an Etymology” by Michael Hilton (November-December 2015 Issue)
“The Making of Ferguson” by Richard Rothstein (November-December 2014 P&R Issue)

Primary Sidebar

PRRAC Updates

PRRAC Update (September 8, 2023): “P&R Live” event coming on 9/28; one more week to register for the housing mobility conference

PRRAC Update (August 4, 2023): national housing mobility conference agenda; SOI research; incremental progress on the Hill

PRRAC Update (July 20, 2023): School segregation and school funding; Small Area FMRs; mobility in Massachusetts

Previous Updates...

PRRAC in the News

Some states protect Section 8 renters, but enforcement is elusive

July 21, 2023

Section 8 Tenants Are Using New Laws To Fight Housing Bias

July 21, 2023

Feds launch $10 million school desegregation program after stops and starts

May 18, 2023

Black families to benefit, eventually, from income discrimination ban in Illinois

May 11, 2023

Previous Posts...

PRRAC on Twitter

Tweets by @PRRAC_DC

Poverty & Race Journal

Footer

PRRAC – Poverty & Race Research Action Council

The Poverty & Race Research Action Council (PRRAC) is a civil rights law and policy organization based in Washington, D.C. Our mission is to promote research-based advocacy strategies to address structural inequality and disrupt the systems that disadvantage low-income people of color. PRRAC was founded in 1989, through an initiative of major civil rights, civil liberties, and anti-poverty groups seeking to connect advocates with social scientists working at the intersection of race and poverty…Read More

Archives

Resources at PRRAC

  • Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing
  • Environmental Justice
  • Fair Housing
  • Fair Housing & Community Development
  • Low Income Housing Tax Credit
  • Poverty & Race Journal
  • PRRAC Update
  • School Diversity
  • Housing Choice Voucher Mobility
  • PRRAC in The Courts

Copyright © 2023 · Magazine Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in var _ctct_m = "7608c7e98e90af7d6ba8b5fd4d901424"; //static.ctctcdn.com/js/signup-form-widget/current/signup-form-widget.min.js

PRRAC — Connecting Research to Advocacy

  • Fair Housing
    • Fair Housing Homepage
    • Federal Housing Advocacy – by Program
    • Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH)
    • Housing Mobility & the Housing Choice Voucher Program
    • Source of Income Discrimination
    • Low Income Housing Tax Credit
    • Fair Housing and Community Development
    • Civil Rights and Housing Finance Reform
  • School Diversity
    • School Diversity
    • NCSD Website
  • Housing-Schools Intersections
  • Special Projects
    • Civil Rights History
    • Civil Rights & The Administrative State
    • Environmental Justice
    • Expanding the “Social Housing” Sector
    • International Human Rights and U.S. Civil Rights Policy
    • One Nation Indivisible: School Diversity, Immigrant Integration, and Multi-Racial Coalitions
    • PRRAC in the Courts
    • Alliance Housing Justice
  • Search
  • About
  • Press Room
  • Poverty & Race Journal
  • Donate
  • Publications
    • PRRAC Publications & PRRAC Authors
    • PRRAC Policy Briefs
    • PRRAC Advocacy Resources
    • PRRAC Advocacy Letters
  • Events
  • Contact