Today, Senate Democrats failed to round up the sixty votes needed to move the legislation forward:
Republican lawmakers today blocked the Senate from taking up the D.C. vote bill, dealing a major blow to the District’s most promising effort in years to get a full member of Congress.
The vote was merely on whether to begin action on the bill. But only 57 senators voted in favor, short of the 60 needed to proceed. Without enough support to vault the Senate’s procedural hurdles, the bill is expected to stall for this year, and possibly next year as well.
The vote was a crushing disappointment to activists who have worked for years to gain voting representation for the city in Congress. The bill, which passed the House in April, has gone further than any other D.C. vote measure in nearly 30 years.
The bill offers something to both parties. It would expand the House of Representatives by two seats: one for the overwhelmingly Democratic District, and the other for the next state in line to add a seat. That state is currently Utah, which is heavily Republican. Utah would also gain an extra electoral vote.
The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) and the White House have strongly opposed the legislation. They argue it violates the Constitutional mandate that House representatives be chosen by the “People of the several States.” That, they contend, would exclude the District, which is not a state.
Perhaps more important, though, are political concerns. Some Republicans feared the measure could eventually lead to two full D.C. senators, who would likely be Democrats.
Shortly before the vote, the White House issued a statement reiterating that aides would urge President Bush to veto the legislation if it reached his desk.
Proponents had portrayed the bill as a civil-rights measure, saying that depriving a majority African-American city of a vote echoed discriminatory practices outlawed decades ago.
Some Democrats will demagogue this no doubt, but I’m guess that most of America just doesn’t care.
Well, it didn’t take long for the demagoguing to start, at least not at Wonkette:
[T]he White House and the GOP leadership are steadfastly against letting black people have representation in the federal government.
What nonsense.
