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• Better questions about climate change

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Constitutional Representation

At the blog On Tap, Marshall Manson wrote last week that the Democrats had turned their back on the Constitution:

Democratic House Leader Steny Hoyer introduced a proposed change to House rules that would allow Delegates and the Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico to vote on the floor of the House.

Delegates and the Resident Commissioner represent U.S. territories and other possessions in the House. There are five: one delegate each from the District of Columbia, American Samoa, the Virgin Islands and Guam, and the Resident Commissioner from Puerto Rico.
Needless to say, four of the five are Democrats.
Under House rules, delegates and the Resident Commissioner are currently allowed to cast votes in House Committees. (A practice that I believe is also contrary to the Constitution.) At present, they are not allowed to cast votes on the floor.
If the Democrats get their way, that will soon change.

And as you may have guessed, they did get their way on a party-line vote.

Mary Katherine Ham (at Townhall Blog) notes:

Perhaps after "six years of George Bush" the media thinks the "conversation has become a little one-sided," and this is now warranted. After all, the NYT story is headlined, "House restores voting rights to Congressional delegates.

The return of the privileges, first allowed by Democrats in 1993 and rescinded by Republicans in 1995, resulted in Republicans’ pouring out their frustration about their treatment by Democrats in the first weeks of Congress. The sour mood threatened efforts at forging a more cooperative relationship between the parties.

Two years on, twelve years off… the best description for that is a “restoration”, isn’t it? As Manson noted in his post last week, the media wasn’t so thrilled about it back in 1993. So fickle.

But earlier this week I heard something on this issue that really spun me up. Here is NPR’s Farai Chideya interviewing D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty:

The biggest glaring problem is that we don’t have a vote in the national legislature, we don’t have two senators and a congressperson like we should.

Two senators and a congressperson.

Two senators.

[shudder]

The pertinent part of the interview is from 5:24 to 8:57. Don’t feel compelled to listen to the whole interview on my account, but that bit is unbelievable. Chideya repeatedly tries to goad the mayor into saying more, asking him twice whether he is “hamstrung” by the situation and asking whether he will be a “champion” on the issue. I guess I should just be happy that she wears her sympathies so openly, when so many in the media pretend at objectivity.

Two senators. Look, the District of Columbia has 550,000 people. If it were a state, it would be 50th in the nation – barely ahead of Wyoming by less than the seating capacity of Nationals Ballpark. During away games, it might be 51st. It is only the 27th most populous city in the United States, and dropping. It is not a state. It should not be a state. Why does it deserve two senators?

I hope this is the last I ever hear of that proposal. Takers?