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Posted: 1:11 PM- WASHINGTON - A measure to give Utah an additional representative in Congress was derailed today by House Republicans.
GOP lawmakers used a procedural move to block the bill that supporters had believed was assured passage.
The legislation is designed to give the District of Columbia its first full-voting member of the House. Republican critics want the bill sent back to committee with instructions to amend it to get rid of the district's ban on handguns.
Democrats, fearing some of their members would peel off when faced with a gun rights vote, delayed a vote on the GOP motion.
Several Republicans argued on the House floor that the legislation is unconstitutional because the District of Columbia is not a state and the Constitution clearly states that House members shall be elected "by the people of the several states."
Democrats contend the district is considered a state for various other rights reserved for states and cited constitutional scholars who back the move.
House Democrats were confident they had the votes to pass the measure. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi even celebrated the bill's passage - before Republicans sidetracked it.
"This is a happy day, indeed," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. "It is a historic day."
But opposition forces came out strong against the bill and for the moment Democrats are scrambling to decide how to go forward.
Rep. LaMar Smith, R-Tex., used a procedural move to call for a vote on sending the measure back to committee but with instructions that the bill be changed to get rid of the city's long standing ban on handguns, a move that set up a vote on gun rights.
"This is the most startling, double hypocrisy I've ever heard of," said Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich. "Very clever whoever dreamed this up."
"These people are trying to kill voting rights for the District of Columbia," argued Eleanor Holmes Norton, the district's non-voting delegate.
Even if the bill passes the House, though, it faces an uphill battle.
The White House opposes the measure and President Bush's advisers say they will argue he veto the bill should it pass. The legislation appears to have tepid support in the Senate and it's unclear how far it will go in that chamber.
Under the legislation, Utah's seat, which would be the state's fourth, would be elected statewide until after the next reapportionment in 2012. Some critics have argued that would be unconstitutional because the state's residents would vote for two members of Congress, but Congress' research arm issued a report Thursday saying that the temporary at-large seat would likely be upheld by the courts.
The bill is meant to be politically neutral by matching the expected Democratic member for the District of Columbia with another member from Republican-dominated Utah, which was next in line to get a House seat after the last Census.