DMV Daily: Norton Tries Again

If at first you don’t succeed…

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton has dutifully if pessimistically introduced three bills that would address the District’s lack of congressional representation.

The New Columbia Admission Act would create a 51st state out of what’s now D.C., while the District of Columbia Equal Representation Act would give the District representation equal to that of a small state: one full House member and two senators. The third, the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act, would give D.C. a House vote alone. While that final option has come close in the past, none of the measures has a chance with a Republican-controlled House.

Indeed, the Washington Post says the “new measures come at a bleak time for the voting rights movement.” DCist’s Martin Austermuhle agrees, writing, “It is truly a depressing sign of the times for the D.C. voting rights movement when our congressional delegate introduces legislation that has been introduced before with no additional expectation that it will pass this time around.”

But Norton said in a statement that the three bills serve a symbolic purpose: to show District residents’ “determination to never relent or retreat until we have obtained each and every right to which we are entitled, whether through the frustration and anguish of the incrementalism that Congress has always forced upon us or with the full and complete set of rights, which, would be achieved through statehood.”

Meanwhile, the D.C. Council “is considering renaming a portion of Pennsylvania Avenue, just one block from the White House, to reflect the city’s ongoing quest for statehood,” the Washington Examiner reports -- because renaming that segment of South Capitol Street “Taxation Without Representation Street SE” worked wonders for the cause.

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http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/politics/DMV-Daily-Norton- Tries-Again-113444539.html

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