Fenty to Meet With Bush Official to Push Measure

D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty is scheduled to meet with a top Bush administration official Monday to press for congressional representation for the city, a goal that has grown more complicated in recent days as House Republicans and the White House have stepped up their opposition to a pending bill.

Fenty announced his meeting with White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten as supporters of a D.C. vote bill hashed out strategies to send it back to the House floor for passage.

The Democratic leadership of the House had expected that the measure giving the District its first full-fledged seat in the chamber would pass easily Thursday. But, at the end of a lengthy debate, Republicans moved to send the bill back to committee with new language that would overturn the city's strict gun laws.

The surprise maneuver was aimed at winning support from conservative Democrats from pro-gun areas. Fearful they would defect, Democratic leaders pulled the bill from the House floor.

Key House Democratic staff members huddled yesterday with the city's congressional delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), to plan how to move the bill forward.

"We're working to resolve this as quickly as we can," said Drew Hammill, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

But people familiar with the strategizing on both sides said it could take awhile to bring the measure up for a vote.

Brian Kennedy, a spokesman for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), said a legal Ping-Pong match could ensue as each side tries to outsmart the other.

"Their lawyers are going to try and put bookends on the bill, to prevent Republicans from offering a similar motion" to send the bill back to committee, he said. "Our lawyers are similarly going to work to make sure that we still can."

Sending a bill back to committee subjects it to such long delays that the legislation can die.

Republicans have said they oppose the bill because they believe it violates the constitutional provision limiting House representation to people from "states" -- not non-states, such as the District.

Some Republicans also fear the bill's proponents are trying to establish a precedent that eventually could lead to the addition of two senators from the heavily Democratic District.

The bill's sponsors, Norton and Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), reject that idea, saying the measure is a bipartisan compromise. The legislation would increase the size of the 435-member House by two representatives. One would go to the District and the other to the next state to expand its delegation. That is currently Utah, which leans Republican.

Kennedy noted that Democrats could bring the bill up under a special rule that bans the Republican minority from trying to send it back to committee. But that would be highly unusual and probably would infuriate Republicans. The ability to "recommit" legislation to committee is one of the few weapons they have as the minority party.

"That would be the nuclear option," Kennedy said. "That would be legislating by decree."

Supporters of the bill say they hope to bring it back to the House floor next week. After that, Congress takes a break until the middle of next month.

Fenty (D), an ardent supporter of the bill, predicted yesterday that House Democrats would "quickly get right back on track" with the legislation. He is scheduled to meet Monday evening with Bolten, who grew up in the District.

The mayor "is just interested in reiterating the importance of the voting rights issue," said his spokeswoman, Carrie Brooks. She said Fenty had discussed it in the past with Bolten but not since the White House threatened earlier this week to veto the D.C. vote bill.

Fenty "is still optimistic that . . . if it gets to the White House, that it would be difficult for the president not to sign it," Brooks said.