UT has often had a strange habit of electing 'Rat Congressmembers even in heavily GOP districts. Although Matheson barely won reelection in '02, there were some that said he didn't draw the strongest possible opponent that year, nor in '04 or '06. Presumably he'll remain until either Hatch or Bennett retires to try to take a run for the Senate. A 'Rat hasn't won a Senate race there since 1970. Personally, I oppose this 4th seat move solely because this is an attempt to give DC a full-blown voting House member, which strikes me as Constitutionally dubious. If we're going to empower DC, why not give the Conservative GOP Resident Commissioner from Puerto Rico a vote, too ?
First of all, the Utah legislature had already drawn a map for 4 members in 2002---they were hoping that the Supreme Court would rule that it, and not North Carolina, would get the 435th congressional district allocated (Utah got robbed, but that's a story for another day). This whole thing smells of a publicity stunt to try to draw attention to that outrageous (and unconstitutional) bill by Virginia RINO Tom Davis.
If Congress can give a House vote to the delegate from DC, why couldn't it give a House vote to people selected by the House leadership? Surely Pelosi's staffers should each get a vote; they have no less of a mandate from a "State" than does Eleanor Holmes-Norton. And if Congress can decide to add an extra Representative after the Census numbers come in and it's clear what state will get that Representative, it can just as easily reduce the size to 434 or 433 if the last two states that would get extra Representatives are from the opposing party. This corrupt maneuver by Davis violates Article I, Section 2, Clause 1 (which is, like, in the first page of the Constitution, so Davis wouldn't need to read very far before reaching it), which states that the House shall be composed of members elected by "the several States," not by the States and whomever else Tom Davis wishes to let vote; the bill also violates the Apportionment Clause by moving the goal line after the Census has been held. If the House and Senate pass this legislative turd, and President Bush gets some of Karl Rove's famous advice ("Mr. President, voters in DC will become Republican if you sign it"), the courts should immediately enjoin it from going into effect.
I think that it is a travesty that the U.S. citizens who reside in DC do not get to elect representatives to the legislative body that approves laws that affects them, just as it is a travesty that the same thing happens to the U.S. citizens who live in Puerto Rico, Guam, the USVI and the Northern Mariana Islands. I think DC should become a State of the Union, but not under its present boundaries, which leave it as a shrinking city that is unfit to be a State. DC and its close-in neighbors in MD and VA should become the State of New Columbia, and since Tom Davis's Fairfax County would be in the new state, he can seek Democrat and RINO votes when he runs for the Senate in that Democrat wasteland. Meanwhile, Virginia would become a safely Republican state in both federal and state races, and Maryland would become a Republican state in gubernatorial and Senate races and a swing state in presidential races. See http://auh2orepublican.blogspot.com/2005/08/fair-and-reasonable-alternative-to-dc.html, which explains how both DC residents and the GOP would benefit from such an arrengement.
As for the other U.S. territories, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Vrgin Islands (joint population of a bit over 4 million) should be admitted as a joint state, and Guam, the Northern Marianas and the small island territories of the Pacific (combined population of a bit less than 250,000) should become part of the State of Hawaii (residents of American Samoa are not U.S. citizens, so I would leave them out of this, at least for now). Puerto Rico would probably be a swing state in federal elections, sine it is similar to Louisiana with its socially conservative, economically populist electorate; the Democrat-leaning voters of the USVI would only comprise around 2.5% of voters in the combined state. As for the new Hawaii, it would be made more Republican by the addition of the Northern Marianas and especially Guam, along with the military personnel in the other islands. President Bush got 45% in Hawaii in 2004, and the race would have been much closer had Guamanians and other islanders been allowed to vote (Guamanians hold a straw poll of the presidential candidates on Election Day, and President Bush beat Kerry by 65%-35%).
U.S. citizens living under the U.S. flag should have the right to elect Senators and Representatives that pass the laws to which they are subject and to vote for the President who executes such laws and could send them to war. My suggestions are not the only way to fix the problem, but I think they are the fairest way to do so.