No Veto for Voting Rights

White House opposition should not stop Congress from doing right by the District.

IT'S A TOSS-UP as to which is more disappointing about the White House's announcement of opposition to D.C. voting rights: the cynical timing or the hypocritical reasoning. Only when legislation giving representation to the District picked up momentum did the Bush administration break years of studied silence. Then it used its supposed concern for the Constitution to justify the continued disenfranchisement of a city of half a million people.

The House is set to vote this week on a measure that would increase its membership to 437 by pairing a new seat for the mostly Democratic District with an additional seat for largely Republican Utah. That the measure has gotten as far as it has is a credit to its sponsors, Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) and the District's nonvoting delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton (D). Not only have they presented a persuasive argument about the unfairness of the District's situation, but they have come up with a practical political solution. There is bipartisan support for this historic bill, including from such leading conservatives as Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.).

The White House, though, seeks to short-circuit congressional consideration. It won't say whether President Bush would veto the measure, but the suggestion that he has constitutional concerns is a signal to Congress that this is an issue it need not make an effort to address. The real aim, of course, is to have Congress kill the bill. That way, the president is spared from having to take a stand on whether he thinks it is right that Americans who live in the District are deprived of voting representation in Congress. It's a question Mr. Bush has ducked since taking office.

The issue of constitutionality is by no means cut and dried. Eminent constitutional scholars of differing political persuasions have weighed in on both sides of the issue. One side points to the Constitution's Article I, Section 2, which says that the House "shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States." Advocates counter with the District clause, which empowers Congress to "exercise exclusive Legislation" over the District.

Ultimately, it will be up to the courts to decide which interpretation is correct. Until then, the House, the Senate -- and the president -- should do everything they can to bring democracy to the nation's capital.