New Jersey Congressman Rush Holt will not bring up HR 811 on the House floor on Thursday, September 6, as he had planned. However, he may bring it up on Friday, September 7. HR 811 is the bill mandating that all vote-counting machines in federal elections must produce a paper trail.
Also, HR 1905, the bill to give the District of Columbia its own voting member of the U.S. House, and an additional seat for Utah, won’t be brought up in the Senate until September 10 at the earliest.
Does anyone wonder why HR 1905 makes Utah so special that it gets another House member just because D.C. gets one? And where does the Constitution allow DC to have a member now, but it hasn’t had one before? Nothing controversial here?
Utah is in the bill because it was a hair’s breadth away from getting another seat after the 2000 census. If civilians living overseas had counted for the states in which they were domiciled, Utah would have had its extra seat. Utah has lots of LDS missionaries overseas. I forget which state would have lost a seat. Utah had sued and lost. Military living overseas do count for reapportionment purposes. Utah argued it was irrational to count military and not civilians.
This is true. D.C. should also have two voting Senators as well. Currently they still are not equally represented.
DC should have all the populated area ceded back to Maryland. Problem solved and constitutional crisis averted. Virginia got its portion back a long time ago; it’s Maryland’s turn now.