Mr. HOYER. I can't tell you when it will come to the floor. As you know, the Senate just passed it recently, the latter part of last week or the beginning of this week, I think, and we have not appointed conferees. So I can't give you the answer, really, to either question, because we don't have conferees appointed as it relates to the D.C. bill, as you know.
We have talked about the Defense bill. We have an Armed Forces. The Armed Forces is dedicated to the defense of freedom and the preservation of democracy. We have lost over 4,500 troops in Iraq. The people of Baghdad can elect members of their parliament today because our young men and women, and some not so young, fought, and too many died so that the people of Baghdad could elect a voting member of their parliament.
It is somewhat ironic that in the symbol of democracy around the world, that our fellow citizens, some 600,000 of them, don't have a voting representative in their parliament, the House of Representatives, the people's House. I think that's an egregious undermining of the principles for which our men and women fight, for which we stand and to which we have pledged support of our Constitution. Now whether or not that will be included in the Defense bill, it is about democracy. It is about participation. It is about respect.
I will tell my friend, I don't know whether that's going to be. I've heard some discussion about that myself. But whether it is or not, I will tell my friend that I will continue to fight as hard as I can to try to figure out how I can bring that bill to the floor, get it to a vote, and give the people of the District of Columbia, our fellow citizens, the right to vote as the citizens in Baghdad can do, the citizens in Moscow can do, the citizens in every free country in the world except the United States of America, can do. I think that's a blot on our democracy. I would hope that we would erase that blot as soon as we can in any way that we can.
I yield back to the gentleman and thank him for yielding.
