Voting Right Versus Wrong

Last Thursday, freshman Congressman Jason Chaffetz had an Op-Ed in the Washington Times talking about the unconstitutionality of the so-called DC "voting rights" bill. He starts off addressing the basic truth that those who live in DC are taxed without representation.

Taxation without representation is fundamentally flawed. It was wrong when Great Britain governed the American Colonies. It is still wrong today. Citizens of the District of Columbia deserve to be represented by a voting Member of Congress.

He laid out his opposition to the bill that was presented in the House and Senate this year - even if Utah did benefit from getting an additional seat in the House as a result of this bill...

However, we can correct this without violating the Constitution. The Founding Fathers' decision to exclude the District from congressional representation was no oversight. They made clear their intent that members of the House are chosen “by the People of the several States,” and that Washington, D.C., was not intended to be a state. I cannot accept that this foundational principle was meant to be trumped by Congress' plenary power in the “District Clause.”

More importantly, he laid out all of the CONSTITUTIONAL ways that this could have been done - ways that Republicans proposed in this session but Democrats rejected...

The provision to give Utah the fourth seat in the House it nearly received after the 2000 census is no comfort. Utah deserves the additional seat but should not accept it as a political bribe. Offering a new member of Congress to a state, even a deserving one, to curry political favor and support for unconstitutional legislation does not represent the type of bipartisan compromise that Americans expect and deserve.

This is not, and should not be a partisan issue. None of my Republican colleagues were heard calling for exclusion of the District's citizens from their right to representation in Congress. Instead, Republicans proposed alternatives that were constitutional.

The best alternative is retrocession of residential areas of D.C. back to Maryland, as was done with Arlington, Va. Under this option, D.C. residents would receive not only a vote in the House and two in the Senate, but a state legislature, a governor and many other benefits.

Texas Republican Louie Gohmert proposed a version that was broadly supported by Republicans, but was rejected in traditional partisan fashion.

Another constitutional alternative is to amend the Constitution. Admittedly, this solution has been considered and rejected twice - once by the Founders and again recently. In 1978, Congress passed an amendment granting D.C. voting rights in Congress, but only 16 states voted to ratify. At the time, the Judiciary Committee, chaired by Democrat Peter Rodino, issued a report stating that, “If the citizens of the District are to have voting representation in the Congress, a constitutional amendment is essential; statutory action alone will not suffice.”

The Legislation, as written, was a lawsuit waiting to happen. Granting DC residents their rights to representation in a Constitutional manner is in the best interests of the electorate. Pushing a blatantly unconstitutional bill, as the Democrats have done, shows that they were not serious about doing the right thing by the citizens of DC - only that they were more concerned about a naked power grab - a push for a guaranteed Democrat seat.

If you want to do what is right Speaker Pelosi, do it the Constitutional way...it's the only way!