D.C. Vote Moves Front and Center in Senate
Photo of D.C. voting rights supporters outside the Dirksen Senate Office Building at a rally on Monday by Katherine Frey/The Washington Post. Pictured from left are former Rep. Jack Kemp, 10-year-old Ricky Washington, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C. Shadow Sen. Paul Strauss and D.C. Vote's Ilir Zherka.
TODAY IS JUDGMENT DAY in the U.S. Senate.
Legislation that would give the District a full and equal vote in the House of Representatives must pass a procedural vote in the Senate to move forward — and the margin is expected to be close. As The Post's Mary Beth Sheridan reports, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty will be on the floor of the Senate lobbying lawmakers face to face.
Earlier this summer, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid delayed consideration of the bill because he thought there weren't enough yes votes to avoid a possible filibuster by Republicans. The bill is being pushed now because Senate sponsors feel that support has solidified. 
But there are still a number of senators who haven't publicly stated how they're going to vote.
One of those lawmakers has been the dean of the Senate, Robert Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat pictured at left who famously carries a miniature version of the U.S. Constitution in his left-breast pocket. The current debate about D.C. voting rights is over the constitutional definition of what a state is and whether Congress can treat the District as a state via legislation.
And how exactly does Mr. Constitution himself plan to vote?
Byrd, who as Senate majority leader in 1978 supported a proposed constitutional amendment giving the District full and equal representation in Congress, plans to vote no on the current legislation. (UPDATE, 10:13 a.m.: Byrd's office just announced that the senator will miss today's vote to accept an honorary doctorate from Wheeling Jesuit University on behalf of his late wife, Erma Ora Byrd.) Here's his statement his office released to Express this morning:
I oppose S. 1257, because I doubt that our Nation's Founding Fathers ever intended that the Congress should be able to change the text of the Constitution by passing a simple bill. The ability to amend the Constitution in only two ways was provided with particularity in Article V of the Constitution for a reason. If we wish to grant representatives of the citizens of the District of Columbia full voting rights, let us do so, once again, the proper way: by passing a resolution to amend the Constitution consistent with its own termsSo that must be a disappointment to advocates of the current legislation. We'll be watching the vote closely.Now is certainly not the time for us to make it easier, rather than more difficult, to alter the text of the Constitution. We serve with a President who already believes that he can ignore the rule of law by issuing a simple directive, a signing statement, or an order that undermines the delicately balanced separation of powers, which the Framers so painstakingly included in the Constitution. A series of federal judges is now confirming what many of us have known from the start: that this Administration believes it can write 200 years of civil liberties out of the Constitution with a simple stroke of a pen.
» "11th-Hour Pressure Applied on D.C. Vote" [WaPo]
Photos by Katherine Frey/The Washington Post and Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images
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