WASHINGTON — It was like a scene from a constitutional law class as witnesses — including Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff — explained why Congress should or should not approve a vote for the District of Columbia and a new fourth House seat for Utah.

Shurtleff, Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, all expressed during Wednesday's Senate hearing that a pending bill creating the two new House votes should be passed and is constitutional. But John Elwood of the Justice Department and other witnesses said the bill is anything but.

The pending bill creates a fourth House seat for Utah, which would likely go to a Republican, to balance the vote that would go to the District of Columbia, which would likely go to a Democrat.

The House passed a similar bill last month, but the Senate version allows Utah to decide how its new district would look, and an election for the new seat would take place in 2008. The House bill included an at-large seat for Utah, where the new member would represent the whole state until after the 2010 Census, when Utah would likely get its new seat anyway.

The main disagreements revolve around the district's component of the bill, where experts take issue with the fact that the district is not a "state." And Utahns at the hearing were strong advocates for a D.C. vote in Congress.

"America's founders might not have foreseen the district becoming the major population center it is today," Hatch said, noting its deserves a voting member of Congress because courts have treated it as a state in applying federal taxes, court jurisdiction in diversity cases and regulation of commerce.

Shurtleff and Cannon added that the framers of the Constitution did not intend to deprive the district's citizens of representation in Congress.

Cannon said the framer's wanted a separate federal district to serve as the seat of the federal government to "ensure that the nation's capital would be insulated from undue influence of the states and that its security would not be left in the hands of any one state."

"Denying District of Columbia residents the right to vote in elections for the House of Representatives was not necessary, or even relevant, to further these purposes," Cannon said. "And contrary to the claims of some, there is no indication in the ratification debates that the framers intended such disenfranchisement."

Shurtleff and other supporters of the bill argue Congress still has power through the District Clause, which gives Congress power over the district, to grant the district a House vote.