On January 6, bills were introduced in both Houses of Congress to give the District of Columbia a voting member of the U.S. House. They are HR 157 in the House, and S160 in the Senate.
The bills would also permanently expand the size of the U.S. House from 435 member to 437 members, effective upon passage. The other new seat would go to Utah, which just barely missed getting another seat in the last reapportionment in 2001.
The sponsors in the U.S. Senate are Orrin Hatch and Joe Lieberman. The sponsor in the House is D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton.
I am glad this is happening. More than 2 should be added!
M
When the bill was being voted on during the 110th Congress, Republicans added in an amendment to do with ending the DC handgun ban. If that hadn’t happened it might have passed. Perhaps the new House rules, which include not allowing unrelated amendments being put into bills when they’re about to be voted on, will prevent that outcome this time.
If DC gets a vote in the House can one for Guam, PR, CNMI, American Samoa, and the Amersican Virgin Islands be far behind and if not why not?
#2. That is not accurate. First, there was a closed rule so that no amendments could be made, in particular one that would have all 4 Utah representatives elected by district. When the Utah-DC compromise was worked out late in 2006, the Utah legislature met in special session in order to delineate 4 districts. But for some reason, House Democrats insisted that the 4th Utah representative be elected at large. It certainly gave the appearance that they actually wanted the measure to fail.
After the original version was recommitted, a different version (HR 1905) was brought forward and passed by the House on April 19, 2007. It had a senate committee hearing, but no further action.
The new House and Senate versions differ with respect to how the 4th Utah representative would be elected. The Senate version would have the 4th representative elected from a district, while the House version would force the representative to be elected at large.
The Senate version has an explicit statement that it would not apply to the Senate. It also has a procedure for expedited judicial review. Again it appears that Del.Norton is more interested in making a point, rather than actually getting legislation passed.
Attention all constitutional law MORONS (of which there are now zillions due to the totally rotted public schools) —
D.C. is NOT a STATE of the UNION.
14th Amdt, Sec. 2 — U.S.A. Rep seats ONLY for the States.
It’s pretty sad that only 1 in 5 respondents even cares that such a bill would be unconstitutional (demonstrating once again that the Constitution doesn’t mean squat anymore.)
The District of Columbia is NOT a State, and the Constitution vests control over the District in the Congress. To do things properly, the Constitution would have to be amended in order to apportion representatives to D.C., or any other territory for that matter.
Of course, if we were doing things properly, there should be a hell of a lot more representatives in the House than a mere 435 (a number arbitrarily set nearly 100 years ago.)
This is unconstitutional, illegal, immoral and wrong. However, my opponent in the 2012 Democratic primary, Eleanor, does not care about such things as the Constitution of the United States of America, what is morally right or wrong, what is legal or not, or any such thing.
It will be the 2010 (not 2012) Democratic primary in Washington, DC where the real election will take place (the DC GOP is just a nice country club with no power). DC has a one party system like Russia. There are minor parties, but they are powerless. Help me dethrone the old Communist.