The College Republicans joined with the College Democrats and the Georgetown University Legislative Advocates (GULA) to drum up support on campus for H.R. 328, a bill in the House of Representatives that would give D.C. a vote in Congress.
GULA is Georgetown’s student lobbying group.
In a city with an overwhelming majority of registered Democratic residents, a voting member of the House would most likely vote with the Democratic caucus. But College Republicans Freshman Representative Ryan Hart (SFS ‘10) said that this bill is better than previous D.C. voting rights bills because it would maintain party balance.
If passed, the bill would increase the size of the House of Representatives from its current 435 members to 437. The District would gain a voting representative, with the other new vote going to Utah, a state that generally votes Republican. The Utah representative would be at large until the 2010 census; the creation of a new Congressional district would be approved by the state legislature.
The three groups have collected over 300 student-signed letters urging their home-state representatives to support the bill. This morning, they are delivering the letters and attending a kickoff event at the Capitol with D.C.’s non-voting delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D).
Although very few students are D.C. residents and thus will not gain direct representation if the bill passes, College Democrats President Or Skolnik (COL `08) emphasized that a congressional vote for D.C. should matter to students.
“Georgetown is one of a very few universities in the country that doesn’t have a single voting representative in Congress,” he wrote in an e-mail.
For example, a bill that would reform lending processes for financia aid is currently under consideration in Congress. With a representative for D.C., the University’s voice on that issue would be heard, according to Scott Fleming, Georgetown’s Federal Relations Assistant to the President.
Eleanor Holmes Norton stands to become the voting representative if the bill passes. When Democrats took control of the House in January, they voted to give Norton partial voting rights.
“[Norton] has the power of moral persuasion, and I believe that with a vote, she can be even more powerful than she is currently,” Fleming said.
