D.C. seat may not mean a Utah seat

Although some Republicans and allies argued it is unconstitutional, Democratic House leaders made clear Tuesday they will push quickly a bill to give the heavily Democratic District of Columbia a House member with full voting rights immediately — and give heavily Republican Utah a fourth House seat as a political counterweight.

But a House Judiciary Committee hearing also heard rumblings that maybe Utah should be dropped from the bill because it is no longer politically necessary to ensure passage in a Congress that has bigger Democratic majorities, and because including Utah creates some constitutional and fairness questions of its own.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, testified against the bill, and among his criticisms is that it calls for the possible new Utah seat to "be a statewide seat, giving people of the state of Utah two representatives" through 2012. "I don't find that in the spirit or the letter of what we should be doing."

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a strong supporter of the general bill, also thinks that an at-large seat would be a problem. "I believe it poses constitutional as well as logistical and financial problems," he told the Deseret News. Hatch is pushing a Senate version of the bill that would allow Utah to draw new districts and not have an at-large member.

Amid such criticism that could delay the bill, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., warned that Utah need not be included to help passage amid bigger Democratic majorities.

"Very frankly, Utah is appended to this bill," and is not a major focus of it, Hoyer said. He added that Congress has not felt the need to add seats for two states at the same time for balance since before the Civil War to keep a balance between free and slave states. "That practice has not been practiced in recent years, thankfully," he said.

"As majority leader, I tell you I intend to bring that bill to the floor in the very near term," Hoyer said. "Washington, D.C., is the only capital in the free world whose citizens do not have a voting member of their parliament. This bill is about setting right that blight."

One civil rights leader testified Tuesday that Utah should remain in the bill to show that adding a seat for D.C. is not just to help the Democratic Party add to its majority but to end "taxation without representation" in D.C.