..:.:: the indie roots weblog ::.:..

Congressional Quarterly reports,

The problem for the Democrats began when the Congressional Budget Office reported that the bill (HR 1433) would increase mandatory spending by $2.5 million, in addition to creating an at-large House seat for Utah and permanently expanding the District’s voting rights in the House.

… Democrats decided to offset the cost. They did so by drafting rules for debate that, upon adoption, would counter the price of the bill with a 0.003 percentage point change to a provision of federal tax withholding law …

… By adding a tax provision to the D.C. voting measure, Democrats broadened what is known as the thread of germaneness … the measure suddenly contained two unrelated provisions affecting the District the voting changes and an alteration of federal tax law that applies to all taxpayers … [making] more District-related provisions germane, according to GOP aides.

Such is how the outrageously non-germane repeal of District gun restrictions was thrown into the mix, causing the bill to be moved to the back burner. How is it that Milton-Bradley hasn’t turned “Parliament” into a board game by now?

“of the several states” versus “exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever”

…with a lament for “full and open debate.”

David Dreier: “It’s a tax increase.”

rhetoric: “completely political and arbitrary”

Tom Davis: “jury trial, right to sue, full faith and credit” — other rights which DC citizens are afforded which the Constitution says are for the people of the “several states”

cynicism: “I see lips moving about bi-partisanism.”

Eleanor Holmes Norton: “I’ve been virtually driven to the floor by the abstractions of the discussion.”

strict constructionalism: “What is offered today is completely unconstitutional.”

Steve King: congressmen are “obligated to vote against a bill they know to be unconstitutional” under their oath.

optimism: “I look forward to a spirited colloquy as we move through this.”

Sheila Jackson Lee: “don’t read, like the bible, one part, without reading the other” — on selective readings of the Constitution.

Tom Davis: “We’re trying to take the politics out of this.”

Steny Hoyer: “If we can fight for democracy in Baghdad, we can vote for democracy in DC.”

… and Bush’s advisors are urging the President to veto it. There’s a showdown brewing…

Gist
Analog Jepack
The Dance Party
Telemetrik

Just as the bill to give DC a full voting seat is almost sure to pass the House next week, the Bush administration plays its cards: “D.C. is not a state.”

Hmmm… I don’t think that has ever been contested, if proposed. White House spokesman Alex Conant reveals, “The Constitution specifies that only ‘the people of the several states’ elect representatives to the House.”

The Constitution does state, “The House of Representatives shall be … chosen every second Year by the People of the several States,” while Senators are “chosen by the Legislature” of each state.

Perhaps then, only a bill offering two Senators for the District would be Constitutional?

Here’s the poker tell: the current administration is willing to support a trillion-dollar spending spree to spread war/democracy in the middle east, but not approve a resolution to validate democracy in its own seat of power. They don’t support democracy, they support political gain for a political party.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/16/AR2007031601923.html