Zherka said he is confident the bill would get the 60 votes it needs but cautioned that "you can't count the votes until they are actually cast."

"This is the beginning of the end game in the Senate," Zherka said, because there will still be hurdles to overcome in the Senate even if the bill gets the 60 votes this afternoon.

DC Vote again pushed hard for the bill Monday, staging a rally outside the Senate office building with residents wearing signs saying "We Demand the Vote" and encouraging people to call Senate offices to speak in favor of the bill.

Zherka called on McConnell to "stand down" and not oppose the bill "so that democracy can go forward." Raoul Cunningham of the Louisville, Ky., NAACP and Teen Halbig, president of the League of Women Voters of Kentucky, were here Monday to urge McConnell not to block the bill.

In a meeting with Zherka on Monday, McConnell said he realized there were good arguments on both sides of the issue but he would not change his position. In his Senate floor speech, he said the District of Columbia is not a state that can get representation, as outlined in the Constitution.

"If we want to give the residents representation, then we should begin the amendment process," McConnell said.

"But we cannot, we must not, circumvent the Constitution by arrogating powers to ourselves that it does not give us itself. To do so would be to undermine the law from which all

others in this nation derive, the one Lincoln once referred to as the only safeguard of our liberties."

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E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com