Eleanor Holmes Norton: “What has been most encouraging to us is that we now know we are not in this fight alone. Imagine having to fight against…”

“What has been most encouraging to us is that we now know we are not in this fight alone. Imagine having to fight against the almighty Congress when you are one jurisdiction, obviously without the means to let the entire country understand what is happening, and so most Americans had no idea until the arrests took place. Just as the District has been fighting for a vote in the people's House, the House of Representatives, and over and over again we found that most Americans thought we had the vote. There has been a nationwide survey done, and it is very interesting. It shows that more than 60 percent of the American people are for voting rights for the District of Columbia, and that survey has been cut open so as to see whether there are differences as to where people live, north and south, whether people have served in the military or not, whether people go to church or not, and the encouraging thing to those of us who live in the District of Columbia is that no matter how you cut it, Americans believe that if you pay Federal income taxes, you ought to have a vote in this body. Yes, I have a vote in committee. Yes, I can speak as I am now. Yes, I have every privilege of the House--except that privilege that created the Nation, the privilege to vote, to cast the final vote. But, I have gone to funerals of young men who died in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet I could not vote yea or nay on whether they should have been there in the first place.…”