Senate test critical for D.C. voting bill

[Judi Lynn]

Source: UPI

Senate test critical for D.C. voting bill
Published: 16, 2007 at 6:57 PM


WASHINGTON, 16 (UPI) -- The U.S. Senate is expected to decide this week whether to consider a bill that would give Washington, D.C., a vote in the House of Representatives.

If 60 members vote Tuesday to take up the bill -- which would balance a House member for the heavily Democratic nation’s capital with an additional seat in Republican-leaning Utah -- it is likely to come to a vote in the Senate, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

However, if the legislation does not make it past the test vote, it will likely founder for months, the newspaper said.

The vote is expected to be close. Almost all the Senate’s 51 Democrats support the bill, along with five Republicans, but it also has powerful opponents, such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/09/16/senate_test_critical_for_dc_voting_bill/3744/

[bluestateguy]

1. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but isn't that giving Utah another electoral college vote as well?

I'm not so sure I can get behind this bill in its present form.

[LynneSin]

2. I can - folks in DC have been taxed without representation for over 200 years

With the balance of the house shifting to the left it won't hurt us to give the republicans that seat in Utah. But what does hurt is 400k+ people in Washington DC have no vote in DC.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_population
So you'd be ok with a state like Wyoming, which has 55k less people than DC, gets 2 senators and a representative and yet DC is not entitled to any representation in their own home.

[mvd]

4. I agree

For most residents of D.C., their status is no different than the status of people in states. So why no vote? The Repukes don't want to allow another Democratic vote.

[Massacure]

3. So there would be 437 reps instead of 435 then?

Suites me just fine. Any extra rep in Nevada is only temporary until the next census anyways.

[sakabatou]

5. Possibly

[sofa king]

6. It would wrap up an ugly scene in the House.

Every time the Democrats take control of the House, they allow the five delegates (from DC, American Samoa, the Virgin Islands, Guam, and the commissioner from Puerto Rico) the right to a floor vote in the Committee of the Whole.

Every time the Republicans take control of the House, they take that right away.

The Republicans claim that allowing delegates to vote in the Committee of the Whole is unconstitutional because the delegates aren't from "the several states," and they may have a point. But what they're really doing is making sure that five solid Democratic votes get wiped off the roster every time they take over.

DC is a unique case because the residents of DC are at the direct mercy of Congress without the benefit of a voting representative in Congress. For that reason alone they need and deserve a permanently sanctioned voting representative--as do America's Indian tribes, for the same reason.