Congressional Black Caucus meets with Obama

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus will sit down with President Obama Thursday afternoon in the White House for the first time since the nation's first African American president was inaugurated.

Rep. Barbara Lee, the chair of the caucus, downplayed suggestions from media pundits that the CBC was at odds with the new president for failing to pursue a more progressive agenda. "His agenda is our agenda," Lee told the Associated Press.

Lee has served as the chair of the House Progressive Caucus and was an outspoken opponent of the Iraq War. She also made headlines when she cast an historic vote against President Bush in 2001.

Obama himself was a member of the CBC when he served in the U.S. Senate until last year. All 42 members of the caucus are House Democrats, but two members -- Eleanor Holmes Norton of the District of Columbia and Donna M. Christensen of the Virgin Islands -- are delegates and not allowed to vote.

One issue that may come up in the meeting is whether the DC delegate will be given the right to vote in the House. The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted 62-34 in favor of a procedural motion that would make it easier for the District of Columbia Voting Rights Act of 2009 to pass without fear of a Republican filibuster, according to Washington's Afro-American newspaper. 

The measure, which was sponsored by Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT.) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT), would increase the number of members in the House of Representatives from 435 to 437 by adding the D.C. representative and a member to be elected from reliably Republican Utah.