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WASHINGTON - A bill that would grant Utah an extra seat in the U.S. House and the District of Columbia its first voting representative likely will get a vote before the end of the month, advocates for the bill said Wednesday.
Two Hill committees plan to take up the bill and vote on it next week, a move that clears the way for a full House vote before Congress leaves for a break on April 2. The bill will be heard in the Oversight and Government Reform Committee as well as the Judiciary Committee, advocates said.
"I think it's great that Democrats have come together about details over this deal," said Ilir Zherka, executive director of the group DC Vote, which has been lobbying for the measure for years. "Now they have the road map for committee action and floor passage."
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., confirmed the bill will come up for a vote by month's end.
"The people of the District have waited too long to have a voice in the House," Hoyer said in a statement. "Democrats promised to move this legislation in the first months of the new Congress and that is what we are doing."
The legislation is primarily aimed at getting the nearly 600,000-population, heavily Democratic district its first full-voting member of Congress; Utah, a Republican-dominated state, was added to balance the addition of a member for the district. The bill would increase the size of the House by two members to 437.
The current bill will be tweaked to ensure that the additional seat for Utah -- its fourth -- will be elected statewide until after the next Census.
- Thomas Burr