Thanks for Wasting Our Time and Money
Good job, Utah Legislature. You spent a bunch of time and money drawing up all kinds of redistricting maps for nothing. Yep, Congress decided to table the proposal to give an extra seat to Utah in exchange for a House seat in DC.
In your thirst for gaining an extra seat for a whole three years (most projections show us getting the seat in 2010 anyway), you ignored the Constitution and ramrodded a proposal through that will have to end up being redrawn after the next Census anyway. How is it that a supposedly Conservative state like Utah can go so far astray from sound Constitutional principles? I guess it shows us that these principles can go to the wayside when there is a perceived benefit for the state. I give a special raspberry to Gov. Huntsman for forcing the special session for this train wreck.
Legislators, I'm not going to forget this. We hire you to maintain and respect the law, not flush it down the toilet when you think you can score some brownie points with voters. Shame on you for not living up to your oaths, shame on you for not making the fuss that those of us outside of the dome did, shame on you for your blatant opportunism.
Jesse
Shauna
the word blatant makes me think of flatulence.
I know. Im a scholar.
I’m glad this has finally been tabled. Frankly, I wasn’t comfortable with any part of this scheme. Besides, these DC license plates are the coolest ones in the area: http://web.mit.edu/~jsylee/www/photo/licenses/dc_license.jpg
If we want to fix the taxation without representation problem, we need to do it constitutionally. We should not make an end run around the Constitution using an ‘ends justifies the means’ approach. If we want DC to have representation, the Constitution must be amended. I’m sorry if that is a terribly difficult thing to do, but if we creatively violate the Constitution when it is convenient, the document ultimately means nothing.
Washington City residents can be given representation in Congress by a simple act of normal legislation. All it takes is to retrocede–hand back–the non-Federally-owned parts of the District back to the State of Maryland, where they started. That was done with the Virginia part of the District of Columbia back in the 1840s, when Congress refused to fund needed roads for Alexandria.
All Washington City residents will become Maryland voters, and be able to elect not only a Representative to the House, but also vote for two Senators, a Governor, and a legislature. It would make sense to make the District its own County, rather than divide it between the two adjacent Maryland counties. Maryland may actually merit another seat in the House with the additional population of Washington.
So all the folks who argue that Washingtonians should have representation in Congress should suport the EASY and CONSTITUTIONAL way to do it! Let DC join the United States–literally.
Being embedded in Maryland will make no difference for the Federal buildings in Washington. The Pentagon and numerous other Federal offices operate in Virginia with no problems.