House Vote Delayed
The vote scheduled for today in the U.S. House has been delayed. The supporters of the bill are looking to find a way to pass legislation that does not have the gun provision that was added to the Senate bill when it passed last week.
Supporters Push to Save D.C. Vote Bill in U.S. House
Washington Post, March 4th
According to some sources, the National Rifle Association has hinted that it will count this vote as a ‘ranking vote’. That means the NRA will count voting for a DC voting rights bill without the gun amendment – or for any parlimentiary proceedure that allows it to be stripped – as a vote against guns. There are many Democrats who simply cannot vote against the NRA or they will face severe consquences during the next election.
Political realites aside, it’s a pretty telling of the situation we have in here in DC when it comes to Congress lording over our local affaris. We don’t have any voting representation in Congress, and when a bill comes along that would finally give us just one vote in the House it can’t pass without a bunch of members trying their best to legislate local laws for the city of Washington.
I know why they did it, but it still sucks that over 20 senators voted to give us a vote in the House, yet in the same breath voted to forever strip our local autonomy when over such an important public safety issue.
I would offer a friendly amendment to remove the metal dectors from the Capitol Complex and have the gun laws apply to Congress itself. Sounds like a fair deal to me.
