Fourth seat remains a fantasy
There are no comments for this page [ Add Comment ]Saturday, March 17, 2007
Politics is good at providing illusions. A bill can pass committees, seem to move forward, and its backers become confident of success.
Then -- ka-POW! -- something happens to stop it. All the effort is wasted. You either have to start again from scratch, or give up the fight.
Ever since Utah lost out on a fourth U.S. House of Representatives seat after the last U.S. Census, Beehive State heavyweights have been stewing in anger. A bill was hatched in the U.S. Congress to provide Utah an extra seat, and also give the District of Columbia a seat in the Congress. It has been moving slowly through the committee process and is ready for a House floor vote.
The bill is purely political. It serves Utah political leaders' immediate need for a likely Republican seat, and satisfies long-term Democratic Party desires to have a D.C. seat, which would be Democratic. It's a plain swap -- your hand washes my hand -- the kind of stuff that always goes on in politics.
Except it's an illusion. It is, in our opinion, never going to happen.
The first reason is that the move may be constitutionally challenged. It is not the responsibility of the U.S. Congress to divide its spoils of House seats amongst itself. If in the unlikely event this legislation is signed by President Bush, it would quickly be challenged in court. That would stop it from being immediately implemented.
In Congress, various experts testified as to the legislation's constitutionality. As experts are wont to do, some said the measure was OK, others said no. But the politics behind the swap was on display when an amendment was actually offered -- and fortunately defeated -- that would have invalidated the swap if Utah elects a Democrat to the planned seat. Nevertheless, it highlights the petty motivations that drive the boost for Utah's fourth seat.
The second reason this legislation is an illusion is more subtle. There are powerful interests against the District of Columbia ever receiving a congressional House seat. That issue has been a partisan bone of contention for decades. We simply do not believe that Republican leaders are going to allow an extra Democratic Party seat in Congress if they can prevent it.
As for the argument that it's all a swap, a Republican seat for a Democratic seat, that argument fails when one considers that in a few years, when the next Census occurs, it is likely that Utah will get that fourth seat, regardless of the fate of a D.C. seat. Frankly speaking, why would Republicans allow an extra Democratic House seat when, in a few years, they can get a new -- likely Republican -- seat in Utah for nothing?
Utah's fourth-seat hopes are a fool's errand for now, although we wouldn't mind being proven wrong.
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