Hatch helps bring D.C.-Utah House seat bill to Senate floor

As Congress convened Tuesday, one of the first bills introduced would give the heavily Democratic District of Columbia a U.S. House seat with full voting rights — counterbalanced by giving a fourth House seat to heavily Republican Utah.

Sponsors — including Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah — predict quick passage into law because after the last election, Republicans who had fought it no longer have enough votes in the Senate to sustain a filibuster against it. But the bill also set off a spat between Hatch and brand new freshman Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who says it is unconstitutional.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia's nonvoting delegate in the House, said, "We have every reason to believe that we will have the support this year of both house of Congress (with new larger Democratic majorities) and the new president." In fact, Barack Obama was a co-sponsor of the bill in the Senate last year, and the Democratic platform also supports the bill.

She said that with the help of Hatch and Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., the bill's Senate sponsor, "We will see a history making, bipartisan increase in democracy for two jurisdictions and for our country."

She and some civil rights groups have suggested that the House should vote on the bill on Feb. 12, Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday, as a symbolic time to grant D.C. residents "the equal voting rights they have been denied for more than 200 years."

Lieberman added on Tuesday, "The righting of this historic wrong is long overdue. ... Men and women of the District have fought bravely in our wars, many giving their lives in defense of our country, yet they have no vote on the serious questions of war and peace."

Hatch said, "The bill moves Utah closer to receiving the additional House seat it has has deserved for nearly a decade."

The bill would expand the number of House seats from 435 to 437, giving one to D.C. and one to Utah. If Utah had had an extra 80 people in the 2000 Census, it would have won a fourth House seat. Instead, the last available seat went to North Carolina.

Hatch said, "While the 2010 Census and reapportionment might provide Utah an additional seat, the failure of the 2000 process showed that this is not a sure thing. This bill maximizes the chances of securing an additional seat for Utah, which has had one of the country's fastest growing rates since the last Census."

But Chaffetz has vowed to oppose the bill and criticized Hatch for helping to introduce it on Tuesday.

"I'm disappointed that Sen. Hatch is supporting something that I believe is clearly unconstitutional," Chaffetz said. "I think the Democrats are trying to buy some Republican votes by giving something to Utah that we're already going to get."