This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
WASHINGTON - Utah's efforts to get a fourth congressional seat were waylaid Thursday when Republican critics pulled a procedural move to make the debate about gun rights instead of voting rights.
The legislation is primarily designed to give the nearly 600,000 residents of the District of Columbia their first full-voting member of Congress and is paired with Republican-dominated Utah to balance a likely Democratic district member.
Momentum of the bill was halted, though, when critics of the legislation tried to send it back to committee with instructions that it be amended to get rid of the district's long-standing ban on handguns.
"It's very disturbing," said Jack Kemp, the GOP's 1996 vice presidential candidate and a supporter of district voting rights. "It seems to me that the Republican Party is going to find itself on the wrong side of history if it continues to use procedural methods to stop the District of Columbia from getting the democratic vote."
Advocates of the bill were assured they had more than enough votes to pass the measure out of the House and some were even heralding the vote before it was derailed.
"This is a happy day, indeed," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. "It is a historic day."
Democrats, fearing too many members would peal off when a vote became about gun rights, postponed action for another time, despite protests from Republicans. Supporters of the measure privately say they probably will have to start with fresh legislation and may have to go through the committee process again.
"We may have stalled the vote today but we have not ended our fight here," said Ilir Zherka, executive director of the advocacy group DC Vote.
The White House and other critics knew the bill was going to pass and "pulled out all the stops" to kill it, he added. "You have a group of people trying to trade guns for votes."
The bill's opposition came well-prepared for the fight on Thursday, planning a procedural move that Democrats couldn't call out of order and one that galvanized the House Republicans. Many Republicans have said they're opposed to the overall bill because they believe it to be unconstitutional.
The National Rifle Association issued a memo to House members urging them to vote for the Republican maneuver, a move that could have seen dozens of Democrats defecting for fear of ticking off the powerful gun rights organization.
Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, came to the defense of Republicans in a statement.
"I will continue to push for what Utah justly deserves without sacrificing precious individual rights, like the right to keep and bear arms."
Democrats, however, were livid at the GOP move.
"This is the most startling, double hypocrisy I've ever heard of," said Judiciary Chairman John Conyers of Michigan. "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 nonvoting delegate.