In what many members called “a historic” session, a House subcommittee heard testimony Thursday on a bill that would give D.C. its first congressional representative in 200 years.
With a gallery packed with city officials, civil rights groups and even protesters dressed in Revolutionary War-era frock coats and tripartite hats, the House Judiciary Committee’s Constitution Subcommittee took up the District of Columbia Fair and Equal House Voting Rights Act of 2006.
The bill would give D.C. one voting representative and would add an extra, at-large representative for Utah. It passed the House Government Reform Committee earlier this year, largely because its chief sponsor, Virginia Republican Tom Davis, chairs that committee.
But the bill faces a tougher fight in the Judiciary Committee. Constitution Subcommittee Chair Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, opened Thursday’s session by calling the bill “novel,” but adding that it raises “new and challenging constitutional questions.”
Supporters of the bill say that Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution — which gives Congress wide authority over D.C. — gives Congress enough authority to appoint a representative.
But critics of the bill say it conflicts with Article I, Section 2, which says that House members must be chosen “by the People of the several States.” D.C. is not a state, and the bill wouldn’t make it one; ergo, critics say, Congress can’t apportion representation to it.
Davis, who attended Thursday’s hearing, rested his case on the moral debt owed to the people of the District.
“They’ve paid billions in federal taxes, they’ve sacrificed and shed blood in order to bring democratic freedoms to people in distant lands,” he said. “How can you argue with a straight face that the nation’s capital shouldn’t have some Congressional representation?”
Utah Gov. Jon Hunstman Jr. led the testimony. He said Utah had unfairly been denied an additional representative after the 2000 census.
