http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/17/AR2010041702500.html

Editorials

D.C. voting rights? Not this deal

Sunday, April 18, 2010

House Democratic leaders plan to bring to the floor as early as Wednesday a bill to give the District a voting member in the House. Similar legislation passed a year ago in the Senate, but an odious amendment was attached that gutted D.C. gun control laws, stalling the momentum for voting rights. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), the District's non-voting House member, said that she reluctantly concluded over these many months that there was no way to scrub the gun language from the bill. Political realities -- the gun lobby's clout, Democrats' pessimism about the fall election, declining incentive for an arrangement that gives a companion seat to Utah -- are cited to buttress the argument that this is the best, perhaps last, chance for voting rights.

We have the utmost respect for Ms. Norton; she has worked valiantly over the years to protect the city's gun laws from assaults from the National Rifle Association, so we know how difficult this decision was for her. But, to borrow her own words from March of last year when she decided to yank the bill in hopes of erasing the gun provision: "There is no choice between a vote for American citizens and a completely unrelated and reckless gun bill . . . . That is an absurd exchange that no one would accept."

Ensuring public safety is the paramount job of local government. The bill, if it follows provisions approved by the Senate, would remove the District's ban on military-style weapons, repeal the city's firearm registration system, allow teenagers to possess semiautomatic assault rifles and undermine federal anti-gun trafficking laws. In a final insult, it would prohibit local officials from passing any law that could "discourage" gun possession. This is not -- as its disgraced and morally craven author, Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), claims -- about restoring Second Amendment rights to the District; the Supreme Court's Hellerdecision took care of that. This is about undermining a community's reasonable authority, upheld in Heller, to regulate firearms.

Republicans alone are not to blame. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) enabled -- indeed, voted for -- this dangerous gun measure. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Majority leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) couldn't find a way or muster the will to get their members in line. President Obama had the gall Friday to issue a lame statement urging support for voting rights, after exerting no influence whatsoever to help the District avoid this appalling choice.

There is a risk of passing up this opportunity for voting rights only to see the NRA employ another legislative device to gut D.C. gun laws. Conversely, it's possible that Congress could approve the measure, only to have the courts strike down the voting representation while the gun provisions survive. Ultimately, those unknowables have to be set aside and the stark choice faced. Never in our wildest imagination could we have thought that we would oppose a vote to correct the historic injustice inflicted on the people of the District of Columbia. But sometimes compromise demands too high a price. This is such a time.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/21/AR2010042104643.html

EDITORIALS

D.C. home rule, shot down

Thursday, April 22, 2010

THE DECISION by House Democrats to pull back D.C. voting rights legislation because of amendments gutting local gun laws was difficult but correct. The District should not have to cede one set of rights for another. The move won't end D.C. residents' struggle to win the government representation they are due. Nor, unfortunately, does it mean there won't be further outrageous assaults on the city's gun laws. Efforts must be redoubled to stave off those attacks while new strategies are developed to get a voting rights bill through Congress.

Under the measure aborted Monday by House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), the House would increase in size from 435 to 437 members, with one seat going to the predominantly Democratic District and the other to Republican-leaning Utah, pending the outcome of the 2010 Census. Mr. Hoyer's announcement came just days after he and other House leaders had agreed with D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) to push ahead with the measure, despite its anti-gun control provision. Ms. Norton had defended that decision, with which we disagreed, as the best, and perhaps last, chance to win voting rights. However, new and even more reckless language proposed for the bill caused Ms. Norton and Democratic leaders to change their minds. "The price was too high," Mr. Hoyer said.

No doubt there were other factors. The District's political leadership was divided in an increasingly rancorous debate. Support in the Senate, which would have had to take another vote on the measure, was eroding, with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and other liberal Democrats threatening to withdraw support because of the gun issue. Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), another key supporter, was also likely to bolt because of a disagreement over how the companion House seat for Utah would be constituted; Mr. Hatch objected to its being at-large.

The city now finds itself back at square one with voting rights and sure to face more initiatives in an election year from a newly emboldened gun lobby. Rep. Travis Childers (D-Miss.), a co-sponsor of the extreme measures rejected by Ms. Norton, said he won't be thwarted, and he announced plans to introduce separate legislation.

That the District was willing to sacrifice a vote in Congress for the protections of its reasonable gun regulations should underscore their significance -- not only for city home rule but for homeland security in the nation's capital. We would hope that the Democrats who control both houses of Congress and the White House would recognize the importance of this issue and not -- as has too often been the case -- be complicit in letting the gun lobby set the agenda. In particular, it's time for President Obama to stick his neck out and insist on fair and sensible treatment by Congress of the city in which he now resides.