No Votes For You!

The poor residents of the District of Columbia will have to wait a little longer to get their own congressman (at least one who can vote on stuff):

Republican lawmakers today blocked the Senate from taking up the D.C. voting rights bill, dealing a major blow to the District's most promising effort in years to get a full member of Congress.

The vote was merely on whether to begin action on the bill. But only 57 senators voted in favor, short of the 60 needed to proceed. Without enough support to vault the Senate's procedural hurdles, the bill is expected to stall for this year, and possibly next year as well.

The vote was a crushing disappointment to activists who have worked for years to gain voting representation for the city in Congress. The bill, which passed the House in April, has gone further than any other D.C. voting rights measure in nearly 30 years.

The Constitution never intended for D.C. to be a state and have the same rights as other states. If you're a D.C. resident and desperately want a congressman to call your own, Virginia and Maryland are just a short distance away.