Show A Vote for DC D.C. Los Angeles Times This editorial appeared in Fridays Friday's Los Angeles Times Since taking office President Barack has expressed an unusual interest in the District of Columbia sometimes a critical interest as when he ragged Washingtonians about their to winter weather engagement with his new home has raised hopes hopes' that he will press early and hard to allow district residents a voting representative in Congress however has indicated that the issue of voting rights for the district is on his back burner Last month he told The Washington Post that he continues to support the idea but ominously added I think our legislative agendas agenda's chock fulL No Noone Noone Noone one expects or Congress to defer action on revitalizing th the economy but prompt enactment of district voting rights wouldn't require much legislative heavy lifting Last year the House passed a bill that would have expanded its membership to allowing a seat for DC D.C. and another for Utah which almost gained an additional representative in the last census Utah's extra seat would be temporary like those of other states its representation would be reconfigured by the 2010 census The House bill which stalled in the Senate has been reintroduced inthe in inthe inthe the current Congress as the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2009 The provision for an additional seat for fo- Utah a reliably red state is designed to balance the creation of a seat for the solidly blue district This is obviously partisan horse But worse compromises ses have been forged to further an important goal Allowing district residents to discard those Taxation Without Representation license plates is s such ch a goal Its It's unconscionable that residents in the nations nation's capital who weren't given the right to vote for president until 1961 have only a nonvoting delegate in the House the peoples chamber whose constituents are individuals not states Some district residents hope the drive for voting rights wont won't stop with House representation They dream probably unrealistically of the day the district will be transmuted into the state of New Columbia with its own two senators But that clearly would require a constitutional amendment whereas some legal scholars say that representation in the House can be accomplished by statute They cite Article I Section 8 of the Constitution which says that Congress is to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever involving the national capital Opponents of the legislation say this provision is trumped by other language in Article I which says that House members will be chosen every second year by bythe bythe bythe the people of the several states Ultimately a court would have to decide which of two constitutional provisions should prevail preferred interpretation seems obvious The question is not whether the president will support voting rights for his new neighbors but when The answer should be soon |