Posted on 09/18/2007 2:32:40 PM PDT by presidio9
A bill that would have given District of Columbia residents their first-ever member of Congress died in the Senate on Tuesday, dashing hopes of finally gaining full voting rights after a 206-year wait.
Senators voted 57-42, just three votes short of the 60 needed to move the measure forward. The bill would have created two new House seats: One for the city of about 600,000 people and one for Utah, which narrowly missed out on a fourth seat after the last census.
The procedural vote effectively killed the best chance in decades to win the District a full-fledged House member. The city has been denied voting rights in Congress since 1801, making it the only major capital city in the world where citizens are denied a vote in the nation's representative body of government.
Advocates had hoped to resolve what they call a "national disgrace" and the most important civil rights issue of the era.
So there will be no Senator Marion Berry for a while longer.
I’ll cut a deal with the Dems. None of this “House seat for Utah” nonsense.
DC gets a House seat if and only if no government employee is allowed to vote in any federal, state, or municipal election.
So now we’re on the other side of the fence, glad to have that 60-vote requirement.
Yes - assuming the Constitution is still in effect.
Listen, I know its a living document and all, but the part where the Constitution says that the representatives shall come from the several states, and that the people of those states shall vote on them, doesn’t appear to leave much wiggle room. I’m pretty sure that the District of Columbia isn’t a state. How did this bill manage to get 47 votes in the Senate?
Since when have laws mattered to the Left and Looters?
If the residents of DC want a vote in Congress, they can move across the line to Maryland or Virginia. Both Maryland counties, Montgomery and Prince George’s, would love to have many more Democrat voters.
Cosponsors (includes Clinton and Obama).
The AP strikes again. If any other major capital city in the world had the US Constitution as it basis for law, they too would not be able to vote.
Aint no denying that.
They don’t have to move. Residents of Arlington and Alexandria VA vote for their senators and congressmen. Those areas were retroceded back to Virginia in 1847.
Congress could retrocede the rest of the District to Maryland tomorrow. It’s not about the vote - it’s about a sure Democrat seat in the House and eventually two in the Senate.
What is sad is the moron Republicans that lined up behind this suicide pact; Hatch, Davis, Kemp. Republicans are still the stupid party.
Not many live in that shithole except folks who are professional criminals...like Marion Berry
Probably won’t have the 40 votes in the next congress, so DC gets its seat then. Once DC has a Representative, Rats will argue that it just makes sense for them to have 2 Senators. After all, DC surely has a larger population than, say, Alaska.
Seems like Utah will get that extra representative at the next census anyhow.
We’ll have more than 40 seats. Things are going to turn around.
Right...and it’s quite likely seat 436 would go to a D.
Taxation without representation
D.C. has to come in as a State to have that right. Sheesh what MORONS the bill supporters are.
Probably won’t have the 40 votes in the next congressAre you kidding me?
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