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U.S. Senate vote on Utah's 4th seat likely in mid-September

It is unfortunate that Utah's two senators are asking the Congress to participate in an immoral and unconstitutional act and selling the constitutional "birthright" of the people of Utah, not to mention the people of the rest of the country, for the proverbial "mess of pottage". The U.S. Constitution is quite clear--Article One, Section 8 states that Congress shall "...exercise exclusive jurisdiction in all cases whatsover over such District...". If you don't like that phrase Senators, you change it through a Constitutional "amendment". But you say, that was tried in the 1970's and failed. Now, you want to give the people of the District partial voting rights--they get to vote for a Representative, but not their two Senators?!? What about the equal protection clause of the 14tn Amendment? What about the right to vote under the 15th Amendment?!? Ah, you say, we can get away with this because the District is not a state--it is a different creature, it is whatever we say it is. Kind of like the people's rights under the Constitution--the right of habeus corpus under the Fifth Amendment--got rid of that; the right of the people not to be spied upon by their President under the Fourth Amendment--got rid of that too: and oh, yes, declaring war, again under Article One, Section 8; we don't do that anymore, we have the "Authorization to Use Military Force" that allows the President to use the military for personal revenge--what a novel concept! Along with the President and Vice President, you both need to be impeached. People of Utah, because of population growth, you are going to get the 4th seat anyway in 2010---why allow your congressional delegation to trample the inspired Constitution under foot for the expedicency of the next Federal election?!?

Bob, you said it so well.

The only hope at this point is that President Bush has promised to veto the measure. If the Senate passes it, and if the President veto's it then we need to make the political lives of Senators Hatch, Bennett, Represenatives Bishop and Cannon tough.

They have clearly put Washington DC over the Constitution. What is gauling for me is that it is sooooo plain and simple. It is right there. It could not be more clear had the framers of the Constitution put a circle around it and dressed it up with cute stars.

In the last days good will be bad, up will be down, left will be right and plain language will be ignored.

I had the chance to listen to Congressman Bishops explanation and it was incredibly pathetic. I hold out hope that some Supreme Court case ruling took place since the late 1970's that would give Congress this authority, and I can't find it. Nor can our Federal delegation point it out.

IF the Senate passes this I am going to actively start raising money for a legal challenge. I actually think it should come from either the Governor's office (he has drunk the kool-aide so to speak and supports this), or the Legislature.

I don't understand why the conservatives support this. Utah is going to get its 4th seat its just a matter of one more term without it.

In 1790, following the ratification of the Constitution, Congress used the District clause in Article One, Section 8 to grant voting rights to the residents of the newly established District of Columbia as if they were residents of Virginia and Maryland. In 1801, the year that Congress moved to the District, it again used basic legislation under the aforementioned constitutional provision to repeal those same voting rights.

The particular reasons as to why the infant Congress would deny basic democratic rights to the citizens of its capital in 1801 is irrelevant. Times change; what might have worked for the District then certainly does not work now. The pertinent info, the Main Idea that you All Knowing constitutional nay-sayers need to hone-in on, is that Congress has used its power in the past to address voting rights in DC, not through a constitutional amendment, but via simple legislation. Basic statute. And mind you, this was an era when many members of Congress were themselves AUTHORS of the U.S. Constitution. They knew what they were doing.

This establishes precedent. Which is the bedrock of legal and constitutional interpretation. The DC Voting Rights Act is constitutional.