D.C. closer to gaining a full voice in House

WASHINGTON -- The District of Columbia is making historic and startling progress in its effort to gain full voting rights in the House of Representatives, as a compromise between Democrats and Republicans to permanently increase the size of the House to 437 members gains momentum.

A Republican, Representative Tom Davis of Virginia, is brokering a deal that would give the district's delegate full representative status , a change that would give the overwhelmingly Democratic district a vote in the House. In exchange, another seat would be awarded to Utah, a heavily Republican state expected to gain a new seat in Congress after reapportionment following the 2010 Census.

The size of the House has been fixed at 435 since 1911, except for 1959-1963, when it was increased to 437 to give new states Hawaii and Alaska a vote each. The House returned to 435 members after districts were redrawn based on 1960 Census data.

The measure was approved this month by the House Government Reform committee by a 29-to-4 vote, stunning longtime voting rights advocates in the district who had not expected the GOP-run House to make any moves in their direction.

And while the measure still has several legislative hurdles ahead of it, supporters say the district has never come closer to gaining ground in what Davis calls a fundamental civil rights issue. Gaining voting rights in the House for largely African-American Washington, D.C., which is more populous than some states, could advance efforts to win greater autonomy from the federal government and even statehood.

``In the nation's capital, people have fought and died in 10 wars. Why in the world shouldn't they at least get a vote in the House?" Davis said.

While many lawmakers had initially balked at the idea of tinkering with the status the district was given under the Constitution, Davis said they changed their minds when the question was framed as a fight for fairness for 560,000 citizens who pay federal taxes and can be drafted into wars.

``People need to get comfortable with it," he said.

Adding two more seats to the House would mean the Electoral College would also increase by one elector (Washington would retain its current number of three electors) and for the next presidential election, that change would appear to benefit Republicans, since the extra seat would go to Utah, a GOP stronghold.

But after the next census, the extra seat could go anywhere, said Kevin Kiger , a spokesman for DC Vote, a group fighting for district voting rights. Theoretically, the extra seat could even protect Massachusetts from losing one of its 10 congressional seats, as Bay State officials fear.

While the additional Electoral College vote could be critical in deciding a close election, it would also ensure that there could be no tie, since the Electoral College would increase to 539 votes.

The political trade-off has helped Davis build support for his measure, including from high-profile conservatives. Onetime Republican vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp has been pushing hard for the bill, and managed to change the vote of Representative Dan Burton , an Indiana Republican who has said Kemp persuaded him it was a civil rights issue.

Carved out of territory belonging to Maryland and Virginia, the District of Columbia was created as a special jurisdiction for the federal government. District residents were able to vote and run for federal office in Virginia and Maryland from 1790 to 1801. Virginia was given back its piece of district land in 1846, and since Washington is not a state, residents there do not have either US senators or a full voting member of the House.

Resentment over the lack of full representation runs deep in Washington, which in 2000 offered license plates that say ``Taxation Without Representation" to underscore its frustration. District residents could not vote for president until 1961, when the 23 d Amendment gave them the right.

The district's budget must be approved by Congress, and lawmakers have used the authority to goad Washington into advancing other agendas. The district is forbidden from using funds for a syringe exchange program, and some lawmakers are now trying to gut Washington's strict gun control laws.

``It's the last colony," said Mark Plotkin , a local radio host who has made district voting rights a cause célèbre. To force action on the matter, ``there needs to be a moment of embarrassment. Some national leader from another country needs to say to George Bush, `Don't lecture me about democracy' " when more than a half-million people are denied full representation, Plotkin said.

Some lawmakers believe Washington should only get voting representation through a constitutional amendment, an effort that failed in 1978 after supporters failed to get three-fourths of the states to agree to it.

``If [a vote] is going to be added, that's the proper way to do it," said Representative John M. McHugh , Republican of New York, referring to a constitutional change. McHugh was among four Republicans who voted against Davis's bill in committee.

Davis and supporters in both parties say Congress can elevate the district's power in the House through legislation, a view endorsed by such conservative legal scholars as former Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr and Viet D. Dinh, a Georgetown University professor who served in the Justice Department during President Bush's first term .

But voting rights advocates' biggest hurdle has been political. Some supporters of statehood for Washington were reluctant to sign onto a proposal that didn't give the district two senators as well, and which did not alter Congress's control over local district affairs. Some Republicans did not want to give another vote to a city that has always been Democratic.

When the Utah compromise was floated, Democrats worried that Republicans there might use it to redraw the lines to damage the state's only Democratic federal elected official, Representative Jim Matheson . Davis wrote the legislation to require that Utah's extra district be an at-large seat.

The measure now goes to the House Judiciary Committee . From there, the measure would go to the House and Senate, where its fate is uncertain.

While the Senate tends to defer to the House on matters affecting only that chamber, some senators might worry that the bill would open the door to having two Democratic senators from Washington , a GOP aide said.

But advocates of the legislation are optimistic.

``The idea that we might actually have a vote in Congress that we could actually participate in approving our budget, or a resolution to go to war, just to have a stake in that is huge," said Vincent Morris , spokesman for the district's mayor, Anthony Williams . ``It's closer than it's ever been."