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House Passes Bill to Give D.C. a Full Congressional Seat
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The bill's supporters argued that a D.C. seat can be created under constitutional provisions giving Congress sweeping powers over the District.
"District residents just want what Americans elsewhere enjoy: a full share of American democracy," said Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.)
Democrats had expected to use their majority in the House to pass the legislation last month. But Republicans introduced a motion to send the bill back to committee with added language stripping the District of its tough anti-gun laws.
That put the Democratic leaders in a box. They knew that some Democratic members from pro-gun areas would feel obliged to back the motion. If it passed, however, it would have subjected the legislation to potentially lengthy delays in committee, and possibly even killed it, the leaders said.
Democrats realized they had inadvertently turned the D.C. voting-rights bill into a target for all sorts of motions. The source of their trouble: they had added a provision at the last minute to pay for the new House seats. That provision widened the range of permissible attachments to the bill.
In recent weeks, Democratic staffers successfully crafted legislation that would be shielded from such parliamentary maneuvers. They put forward two bills: one adding the House seats, and another that would pay for them, by tweaking a tax provision.
In drawing up two narrowly-written bills, the Democrats aimed to exclude pro-gun language and similar motions that would be deemed not germane under House rules. They also were trying to keep their pledge to pay for any new legislation and not increase the federal deficit.
Republicans protested that Democrats did not allow them to offer alternative legislation on granting the District a vote, such as a plan to allow citizens of D.C. to vote in congressional elections as Maryland residents.
"It was an our-way-or-the highway approach to a very important issue," said Brian Kennedy, a spokesman for Minority Leader John A. Boehner (Ohio).
