A lawsuit was filed Monday on behalf of D.C. residents in a new bid to put legal pressure on Congress to give the District of Columbia full voting rights and representation on Capitol Hill. As millions of Americans head to the polls on Tuesday, advocates pointed out that District residents are still not able to cast votes for both a Senator and member of the House of Representatives. “This lawsuit says that it’s not just unfair and un-American, but it’s unconstitutional that people who live in the District of Columbia do not have the vote,” said Walter Smith, executive director of the DC Appleseed Center for Law & Justice. “It’s time to fix that.”
The lawsuit was filed by DC Appleseed and 11 D.C. residents in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and seeks voting rights in both chambers of Congress.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), the District’s non-voting representative on Capitol Hill, joined U.S. Attorney General Karl Racine in supporting the new legal action at a news conference.
“With record early voting already in progress, no Americans are more ready for a change than D.C. residents, who pay the highest federal taxes per-capita and have no representation in Congress,” she said, noting she hopes the suit, along with a pending D.C. statehood bill and other legislation, will keep the heat on lawmakers.
Full Article: DC files suit to get votes in Congress | WTOP.