A clash over strict gun laws in the nation's capital has managed to shoot down, for at least a week, a bill that would give Utah a fourth U.S. House seat, and at the same time finally give Washington, D.C., a House seat with full voting rights.
The scuffle also has the D.C. City Council so miffed that it launched Tuesday an effort to study gaining statehood and greater independence over its own laws that would bring (not to mention two Senate seats also).
At issue is a move by conservatives to amend the bill to repeal D.C.'s strict gun laws, including repealing its ban on semiautomatic weapons. They say D.C. is infringing on residents' right to bear arms. The Senate last week added such an amendment to its version of the D.C. voting rights bill. D.C. officials hoped the House would not pass such an amendment, too, and force the Senate in negotiations to remove its gun amendment.
However, the House Rules Committee abruptly canceled a meeting it had scheduled for Tuesday in preparation to move the bill to the House floor on Wednesday, when it appeared guns' rights advocates had enough support to force a vote on a gun law amendment.
Senate Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said action on the bill would be delayed for at least the rest of the week. House GOP Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, criticized Democrats for trying to block the gun rights amendment vote.
Meanwhile, the D.C. City Council passed a resolution Tuesday calling the gun rights amendment passed last week by the Senate "onerous and odious," and said D.C. itself should be allowed to make its own decisions on gun control and other matters.
It also formed a committee to look again into statehood, and all possible paths to achieve it. It charged members of that committee "to seek equality for D.C. residents, including full representation in both houses of Congress, through statehood."
City Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray said while D.C. is excited that the Senate passed the bill to give it a House seat, "We are troubled that gaining one right of self-determination may come at the price of another" because of the gun-control amendment. "I find this move to gut our gun laws through the voting rights bill extremely offensive," he said.
Gray added, "I ask: What will it take for the residents of the District of Columbia to be allowed in the club called the United States of America? We pay taxes — $600 million already paid this year — serve on juries, fight and die in wars, and still can't get into the club."
The bill would permanently expand the House by two members. One would go to the heavily Democratic D.C., and the other would go to heavily Republican Utah as a political counterweight.
The Senate and House need to resolve other differences besides the gun amendment in their bills before it passes into law.
Chief among them is the current House version of the bill would require Utah's new House seat to be an at-large, statewide seat in 2010. The Senate version of the bill would have Utah draw new boundaries for four districts.
House Democrats say creating an at-large seat would prevent the Utah Legislature from possibly redrawing districts in ways to make all districts in Utah more Republican-friendly, and possibly oust current Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, among others, says that at-large seat would be unconstitutional because Utahns would get to vote for two House members. He prefers the Senate version of the bill. Leaders of both parties say the Legislature would likely adopt a four-seat redistricting plan it approved in 2006, which both parties say is fair.
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