Now, the question is whether Utah should bow out of the legislation because the state will get a fourth seat anyway in 2012.

Utah was included in the 2003 bill as a way to strike a political balance by adding a seat for the heavily Democratic District of Columbia. Utah, a GOP stronghold, would likely elect a Republican to counter the district's likely Democratic member.

But in the wake of this latest defeat - the bill was blocked from getting to the floor of the Senate on Tuesday - some Utah officials are now hedging on whether it's worth the effort to push the legislation. Even if it passed and survived a presidential veto, it could still wind up in court for years, potentially even after the state received its fourth seat by the normal process.

"It's just kind of reached the point that the benefit to the state of Utah diminishes every day," says Utah House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy. The congressional measure "loses its importance to the state of Utah the closer it gets to the 2012 election."

Utah joined the effort as a way to recoup a seat many felt the state was cheated after the last census. The state came about 800 people short of beating out North Carolina for an additional seat, but thousands of Mormon missionaries from Utah serving overseas were not counted.

The state's missionary argument was rejected by the Supreme Court; the high court later rebuffed Utah's challenge of the Census Bureau's use of "imputation" - a way to estimate the number of people in a household that could not be contacted - to foreclose the state's legal options.

Advocates trying to get the District of Columbia its first full-voting member of Congress realized that adding Utah to its efforts would create a bipartisan approach and increase the chances of passage. The effort came as far as it had in three decades last week in the Senate, but fell three votes short of what was needed to get the bill to the floor.

Rep. Rob Bishop, a Utah Republican who had concerns about the legislation passed by the House earlier this year - he voted present, not for or against the bill - says the interest in the D.C.-Utah legislation is waning as the decade marker nears.

When supporters of getting the District of Columbia a House seat first hatched the idea of pairing its effort with Utah's, Bishop says the plan made more sense. If it had passed then, Utah could have seated another member in 2004 and had eight years seniority by the time the next census would have delivered Utah a fourth representative.

"Simply put, the reason you want another representative is not just to have a warm body, but to build seniority," Bishop says. Even if the bill passes this year and the member is seated in 2008 or 2009, that's only a few years advantage in seniority, he adds.

Still, there is no plan at the moment to divorce Utah from the district effort. Supporters trying to get representation for the nation's capital say they are still lobbying senators to back their efforts and will try to bring back the measure again.

Ilir Zherka, the director of D.C. Vote, the primary group pushing the legislation, says supporters are looking at the failure in the Senate as "springboard for more activity," and there has been no talk of separating the district's efforts from Utah.

"The formula for us doesn't change," Zherka says.

Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch and Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. have been invaluable in pushing the bill, Zherka says, and "we're going to need their help as we get to the finish line."

Hatch, who strongly encouraged his GOP colleagues to support the D.C.-Utah measure, said he doesn't believe it's a lock that Utah will get a fourth seat anyway after the next census (Demographers say it's almost assured because of the state's population growth and the decrease in other states' populations).

And even if the state gets another seat after the 2010 census, Hatch says having one earlier would be beneficial.

"No matter what happens in that census in 2010, it's going to be 2012 before that person is seated," Hatch said. "I'd like to resolve it earlier."

Hatch's Senate colleague, though, isn't so sure there will be any more action on the bill.

Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, says the Senate has too many issues coming to the floor to find time for a second try on this proposal. It may come up in 2009, but that's only three years shy of when the state would get one anyway.

"It may very well mean this is it as far as Utah is concerned," said Bennett, who had raised concerns about the bill as well and wanted to amend it.

Bennett sees a scenario in which D.C. gets a representative and Utah gets shut out until 2012.

If Democrats take the White House and expand their majorities in the House and Senate, they may not need any Republican support to give D.C. residents the vote. Under this hypothetical, they could drop the Utah provision.

"Frankly if I were them, that is what I would do," Bennett said.

That's possible, according to Lewis Wolfson, a professor emeritus of communication at American University in Washington who has watched the D.C.-Utah bill's progress.

By the time the measure makes it to another vote, Democrats could have more than enough members of their own party to push a seat for the district's 600,000 residents alone.

"With such a strong vote like that they wouldn't even need the package" of Utah and the district, Wolfson says.

Jonathon Turley, a professor of public interest law at George Washington University who testified several times before Congress on the D.C.-Utah bill, says there were a few constitutional concerns with the Utah part of the measure. But the main objections - and the arguments that ultimately doomed the bill this round - dealt with the District of Columbia.

Utah was wronged in the 2000 census, Turley says, but then made the mistake of teaming up on a bill that is "flagrantly unconstitutional." Opponents of the measure say the Constitution only allows states to have a member of Congress, and the founding document would have to be amended to make it legal to add a district seat.

"Utah had a very good claim to demand a seat, but it has now coupled that claim with a blatantly unconstitutional seat for the District of Columbia," Turley says. "That has served to undermine Utah's rightful objection to its own treatment."

Despite his concerns, Utah's Bishop says the state shouldn't yet retreat from the legislation, which may find new life next year.

"Could it come back? Yeah, it's conceivable," he says. "I've seen too many issues have funerals and have the corpses come back to life."

tburr@sltrib.com

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* MATT CANHAM contributed to this report.