D.C. voting rights stall in House

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House Republicans derailed efforts yesterday to give the District congressional representation when they injected the city's gun ban into the debate and turned an expected vote into a tumult.

"They are into gamesmanship, and they have been successful with some of the games they are playing," said Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat who is the District's nonvoting congressional representative and a co-sponsor of the bill. "I'm sure we will be back, and I'm sure we will prevail."

The move by Republicans sparked confusion on the chamber floor and came just before the vote on the measure, which would give the District a congressional member with full voting rights for the first time in more than 200 years.

The measure was expected to pass in the Democratic-controlled Congress. However, Rep. Lamar Smith, Texas Republican, introduced a motion to add language to the bill to repeal much of the District's gun ban. The ban was struck down by a federal appeals court earlier this month but remains in effect for now.

"My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have suggested today that District of Columbia citizens have the 'right' to a vote in Congress," Mr. Smith said. "If that's the case, then they must also agree that the citizens of the District should have the constitutionally guaranteed right to possess firearms and protect themselves."

Mr. Smith's maneuver put conservative, pro-gun Democrats in the sticky situation of either voting for the motion, which would effectively kill the bill upon it being sent back to committee, or voting against the motion, which would have been perceived as being in favor of strict gun control.

Rep. John Conyers Jr., Michigan Democrat, called Mr. Smith's motion "the most startling hypocrisy I have ever heard of on a bill of this magnitude."

Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, a co-sponsor of the bill who has advocated for D.C. voting rights for more than three years, called the motion a "ploy" and a"poison pill."

"Everybody was playing their best hand in there," said Mr. Davis, Virginia Republican.

The debate then ended amid more confusion when Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher, California Democrat, who was acting as speaker, took advantage of another procedural rule before a vote was taken on the motion and postponed all proceedings related to the bill.