WASHINGTON -- They may not have her vote, but the people of Washington, D.C., seemed at least to have the sympathies of Alaska's senior senator as they pushed this week for representation in Congress.
The Senate this week took up the district's fight, which would allow residents of Washington, D.C., to elect a voting member of the House of Representatives. And as someone who represents a U.S. state that was admitted to the union just 50 years ago, Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Wednesday that she could draw parallels with the district's effort to have a voting representative.
"I appreciate the pleas of the people of the District of Columbia," Murkowski said Wednesday on the floor of the Senate, "Because it was not too long ago that those same cries were being heard back in Alaska."
But she said she couldn't support the D.C. voting rights bill in the Senate -- although on Tuesday she was one of only a handful of Republicans to vote for debate to move forward on the measure. Murkowski said she wanted to at least allow debate over the issue, saying on Tuesday that it was important to "have an opportunity to look at the options that are in front of us."
Sen. Mark Begich voted for debate to move forward too, and he is expected to support the measure in the final vote.
If it passes, it will give Washington, D.C., a voting House member. Utah would get another one too, bringing the number of House members to 437 and balancing out what is likely to be a Democratic representative from the district with a Republican one from Utah.
Instead of supporting the Senate bill, though, Murkowski announced Wednesday she was filing a constitutional amendment that would put Washington, D.C., on the path to having a voting representative in Congress.
Murkowski said she was concerned that the language of the Constitution says the House of Representatives must be made up of members chosen by the "people of the States." But because the District of Columbia is not a state, Murkowski said she doesn't think Congress can legislate voting representation in the House for the district's residents.
Instead, it must come in the form of a constitutional amendment, which must be approved by two-thirds of both the House and Senate. Then 38 of the 50 states must agree to it.
Murkowski's move on Wednesday drew the attention of Paul Strauss, one of the "shadow" U.S. senators for Washington, D.C. Strauss lingered outside the Senate chambers in hopes of speaking to Murkowski about her constitutional amendment. He never had much luck with former Sen. Ted Stevens, Strauss said, but Murkowski so far had been supportive of the district's efforts.
"I feel a great kinship with the people of Alaska," said Strauss, who was first elected to his unpaid post in 1996. "Their two shadow senators were sort of personal heroes of mine, and I've studied them extensively."
Voters in Washington, D.C., elect two shadow senators and a shadow House member to protest the district's lack of voting rights in Congress. They have no official role in Congress. However, the District of Columbia does have a nonvoting delegate to the House: Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat.
"On particularly dark days, when all seems hopeless, I confess I've been known to go by Sen. (Ernest) Gruening's statute and take some solace, like, 'You made it, buddy,' " Strauss said of one of Alaska's first senators.
But by the end of the day, Strauss still hadn't spoken to Murkowski. Once he learned the details of her amendment, he was more skeptical.
"I was hopeful it was a principled move," he said, "but it's just a partisan one."
Find Erika Bolstad online at adn.com/contact/ebolstad or call her in Washington, D.C., at 202-383-6104.
By ERIKA BOLSTAD
ebolstad@adn.com