Posted on 05/08/2007 6:47:09 PM PDT by Graybeard58
Connecticut is going to hell in a handbasket, and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman has nothing better to do than to try to subvert the Constitution to give the District of Columbia a seat in Congress.
Sen. Lieberman and feckless Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch have proposed creating two new U.S. House districts: one for Utah, one for Washington, D.C. Their grand compromise in theory would give each party one additional congressional seat beginning in 2009.
Sen. Hatch's motivations are parochial while Sen. Lieberman's are nakedly politically opportunistic. He's looking to get back in the good graces of the Democratic Party, which tossed him to the curb last fall and wants nothing to do with him now because of his support for the Iraq war.
His strategy is similar to the one that has failed Republicans repeatedly over the years. But what Sen. Lieberman is doing is doubly faulty because if D.C. deserves a House member, it surely deserves two senators, and all would be the sort of hard-left Democrats who love to make his life miserable.
The fact is congressional representation cannot be conferred by legislative fiat. "The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states," the Constitution says. For D.C. to qualify for a House seat, it must become a state. It has petitioned for just that annually for 25 years and each time has been rebuffed in lopsided votes. In 1978, Congress even went as far as to pass a constitutional amendment to grant statehood to the district, but only 16 states approved it, well short of the 38 needed for ratification.
The Founders wanted the nation's business conducted on a neutral site to eliminate the possibility the host state might evict or otherwise try to influence the federal government. Consequently, the Constitution requires the district be part of no state.
In October 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a lower-court ruling against congressional representation for the city via legislation. So even if the Lieberman-Hatch bill miraculously makes it through Congress and survives a presidential veto, the judiciary will strike it down as unconstitutional. If Sen. Lieberman is looking for love, he should buy a puppy.
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Yes, and stay home until it is housetrained.
The Constitution is no impediment to our form of government - P.J. O’Rourke
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Made out of crack of course.
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The principle is no taxation without representation. To oppose a constitutional amendment allowing for a DC rep would be contrary to the principles the the Republic was founded on. But it should be done by amendment, not statute. Whether the DCers would vote Democrat or Republican is irrelevant to the principle.
Can you tell us exactly what the principle is?
I mean, since they volunteered to live in a 10 mile square area set aside for only one purpose.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
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