Obama, Fenty hoops give assist to D.C. voting rights

Washington getting a voting member of Congress may not be a slam-dunk, but seeing President Obama play basketball with Mayor Adrian Fenty (D) suggests it is no longer a long shot, either.

Congress nearly passed legislation in 2007 giving the city voting rights, and the expanded number of Democrats would be enough to offer hope to a city that hasn’t had a representative since its founding in 1790.

{mosads}But seeing Fenty pal around with Obama in the city, and knowing the president got his political start as a community activist in Chicago, has many believing the bill’s passage is a foregone conclusion.

Some even say Obama — the nation’s first black president — will draw attention to the hipper side of a city often viewed as stuffy and old-fashioned, giving it greater cachet nationally than ever before.

“Having a public face that sort of reflects the cosmopolitan city that D.C. has become might make people think about Washington in a different way,” said Ryan Avent, the former editor of the Washington blog DCist and a blogger for The Economist.

The Voting Rights bill is almost identical to legislation that moved in the 110th Congress and called for adding a voting member for the District, which is historically Democratic, and also Utah, traditionally Republican and the next state in line for another congressional district. The swap was designed to depoliticize the bill and win Republican support.

But in 2007, President Bush voiced his objections, and while the legislation passed the House, it fell three votes short of the 60-vote threshold in the Senate after Republicans argued it was unconstitutional.

The bill’s supporters believe it has a much better shot at overcoming a filibuster this year, thanks to Democrats expanding their Senate majority by at least seven seats.

“We’re extremely optimistic that it will get passage,” said an aide to Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), who is sponsoring the bill again in the upper chamber. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) is sponsoring the House bill. Should the measure get through Congress, backers expect Obama to sign it, as he co-sponsored the measure when he was a senator and told The Washington Post two weeks ago that he supports a “full House seat” for the District.

It’s unclear how soon the bill will move through Congress. While it’s getting a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on Tuesday, Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, has yet to schedule a hearing in the Senate. Obama himself has noted that the legislative agenda is “chock-full.”

Obtaining full representation as soon as possible is D.C. officials’ highest legislative priority, said Ilir Zherka, executive director of DC Vote, and therefore the group decided to back the bill, which is similar to the last proposal — with the Utah seat included — to avoid losing ground.

“We decided to stick with what’s working and bring this fight with closure, to get D.C. voting rights through Congress, and get it to President Obama’s desk,” said Zherka, whose group will meet with new Democratic senators on Wednesday.

Voting rights for D.C. would be a big step forward. Obama has the chance to help the District in other ways, too, said District Councilor Jack Evans.

{mospagebreak}While the D.C. Council met President Clinton for lunch in the White House almost yearly, it never had any real relationship with Bush, Evans said. The councilor hopes Obama revives those meetings.

“He’s an urban-focused president, which we haven’t had since President Clinton,” Evans said.

Fenty already enjoys a close relationship with the president. Since returning to Washington after the election, Obama has played hoops with Fenty at a school in the Adams Morgan neighborhood and had lunch with the mayor at Ben’s Chili Bowl. In addition to sharing a love for basketball and BlackBerrys, they’re both relatively young politicians who rose to prominence as reformists, and both are sons of mixed-race marriages. Fenty was one of the first mayors of a major city to endorse Obama’s run for president, Evans noted.

{mosads}Obama’s familiarity with cities and his friendship with Fenty could come in handy for the District, which, like other urban areas, needs help updating its transit system and public schools, Avent said.

Obama’s appointment of Shaun Donovan, New York City’s former housing commissioner, to be secretary of Housing and Urban Development shows Obama’s commitment to addressing urban issues, such as poverty and a lack of affordable housing, Avent said. His advisers have also signaled plans to appoint an urban policy czar, possibly Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion Jr.

Obama could also help Washington in a less tangible way — by helping to re-brand it — Avent said.

“A lot of cool things have been happening in D.C. over the past decade in terms of music, theater, arts and new restaurants, but the public face we show to the world is kind of unpopular, kind of like stuffed-shirt, crusty-old-white-man kind of thing,” Avent said.

Obama himself has talked about being a part of the D.C. community.

“One of the things that I don’t like historically about Washington is the way that you’ve got one part of Washington, which is a company town, all about government, and is generally pretty prosperous,” Obama told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos earlier this month.

“And then you’ve got another half of D.C. that is going through enormous challenges. I want to see if we can bring those two Washington, D.C.s together.”

Obama has followed up on his words by venturing out into the city in public, something that Bush only occasionally did and that Clinton gradually shied away from after his first few months in office.

Since the election, Obama has visited D.C. areas that haven’t seen a president for years. Obama and his wife attended the historic Nineteenth Street Baptist Church on Inauguration weekend. On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, they volunteered in different parts of the city. And Obama’s appearance at Ben’s Chili Bowl has become a boon for the local institution, which has since seen its lines for food regularly stretch out the door and into a nearby alley.

That kind of boost is what local businesses and community activists are hoping for, said Chili Bowl owner Ben Ali. “I call it Barackomania,” Ali said. “I don’t give the Chili Bowl so much credit as much as Barack.”