Measure for 4th Utah seat clears big hurdle

Despite a reversal in support by Sen. Bob Bennett, a bill that would give Utah a fourth U.S. House seat cleared a high hurdle Tuesday that had tripped it up in the past, leaving only several lower hurdles to clear toward expected final Senate passage later in the week.

It passed a procedural vote, 62-34, or two more than the 60 "super-majority" votes needed to overcome a threatened GOP filibuster and order moving to final debate and a vote on passage. Sen. Orrin Hatch voted for it, but Bennett opposed it — reversing his previous support. In the last Congress, the bill fell three votes short.

The bill would permanently expand the number of U.S. House members from 435 to 437 after the 2010 election to give the heavily Democratic District of Columbia a long-sought U.S. House seat and temporarily give (until the next Census) heavily Republican Utah a fourth House seat as a political counterweight.

Bennett, R-Utah, who faces re-election next year and had been criticized by conservatives for earlier support of the bill, said in a written statement, "I have been convinced that this legislation exceeds the authority that the Constitution vests in Congress, and there is no viable amendment I could offer this and other constitutional concerns."

He added that he is confident "that Utah will receive its fourth congressional seat when the 2010 Census results are announced." It missed a fourth seat in 2000 by falling just 80 people short of the number needed to win that seat, which is why Utah was chosen as the political counterweight to D.C. in the bill.

Before the vote Monday, Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., called the bill blatantly unconstitutional.

"The Constitution could not be clearer about the fact that representation is limited to the states," and that the District of Columbia is not a state, he said. Kyl noted a federal appeals court had upheld that interpretation, and the Supreme Court affirmed it in 2000.

But Hatch, R-Utah, a chief co-sponsor of the bill, said while courts indeed held that the Constitution does not automatically provide for House representation for D.C., they said it could be pursued through "the political process" — and Hatch argued the bill is a constitutional way to achieve that goal.

For example, Hatch noted that Congress allowed residents of D.C. from 1790 to 1800 (when Congress finally moved into the Capitol) to vote for members of Congress in Maryland and Virginia, from which D.C.'s area had been withdrawn. "If Congress could do it then, Congress can do it now," he said.