DC Voting Rights & the State of the Union
DC Vote has been making an aggressive push to get President Obama to address the lack of representation in Congress for the District of Columbia during his State of the Union address. They recently dropped off 41,000 petitions to be delivered to the White House at a Capitol Hill post office. It was a lot of boxes, and looked great for the cameras.
The big question: Did all this effort by groups hoping to get their issue into the speech get noticed at at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Well….not so much. Here’s what Press Secretary Robert Gibbs had to say at today’s press briefing:
Q Robert, obviously a lot of various groups hoping the President will talk about their issue in his speech tomorrow. D.C. Vote, for example, I know held a petition drive urging him to talk about D.C. voting rights. From the White House perspective, what has that effort been like by various folks looking for a mention of their cause in the speech? How intense has that been?
MR. GIBBS: I have to admit, I haven’t the slightest idea. I don’t know whether anybody has seen the petitions or anything about what that is.
Let’s hope he’s just bluffing so everyone is really surprised when they hear it in the speech tomorrow. Given the fact that any mention of DC voting rights in the State of the Union would be the only time Obama has every spoken about the issue as President, I’m not holding my breath.
