Her concerns were echoed by Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia's non-voting delegate to the House, who tepidly praised Davis for helping "raise awareness" but pointedly stayed away from his news conference.

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, who appeared with Davis on Tuesday, asserted the Utah Legislature drew unfavorable lines for Matheson before the last election, yet he still won with the largest margin in his three congressional contests.

"You can't draw it any more Republican," Bishop said.

Matheson's office did not return calls for comment. But Donald Dunn, the chairman of the Utah Democratic Party, said he was not opposed to Davis' bill, provided "Republicans don't try to be piggish and try to create yet another seat" for themselves.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert's office did not return calls for comment. Davis said Hastert, R-Ill., was "keeping his powder dry" on the bill until he could gauge its support in the Republican caucus. Davis added that Democratic opposition to the measure would provide an excuse for Republicans to let the bill die.

"That's why we've got to build critical mass from both parties," he said.

Washington's lack of congressional representation was one of the Founding Fathers' great pieces of unfinished business. Over the decades, a variety of proposals have been floated to resolve the problem, including returning the district to Maryland for voting purposes and granting it full statehood.

In 1978, Congress approved a constitutional amendment to give the district representation in both houses of Congress, but the measure did not come close to winning support from two-thirds of the states.

Davis' bill received mixed reaction from the district's many voting rights groups.

Walter Smith, executive director of DC Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, called the bill "ingenious," saying that "practical people" will support it "on the theory that Rome wasn't built in one day."

But Timothy Cooper, executive director of Worldrights, a human rights group, asserted that Davis' bill "could radically impede" the voting rights movement by muddling "our moral and legal cause.

"The fact that it will have taken 200 years to get a single vote in the House doesn't bode well for our prospects for achieving full voting rights any century soon," he said.