And with only a few days left in the regular House session this year, the partisan bickering over the measure appears to doom the attempt by Utah to gain a fourth representative before the next census and delay any chance the District will get a voting House member.

The crux: Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner wants to remove a provision in the bill that would temporarily make the 4th Utah seat an at-large position elected statewide. He complains that would allow Utahns to have two members of Congress while every other American has only one. He supports the bill, but only if Utah redraws congressional districts so all four are regular districts.

But Matheson and Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer aren't buying it.

Matheson's spokeswoman Alyson Heyrend says the "bipartisan deal" that earned the bill a 29-4 vote in the House Government Reform Committee is being "torpedoed" by the GOP.

"You have a Republican who has re-injected partisanship," Heyrend said. "It's a Republican who jettisoned the deal."

The at-large provision was added to the legislation as a way of assuaging Democrats' concern that the Republican-dominated Utah Legislature would redraw congressional districts in a way to oust Matheson from office.

It's not a far-fetched fear. After the 2000 Census, Utah's lawmakers took Matheson's 2nd District, wholly within Salt Lake County, and transformed it into a district that stretched from Salt Lake City's Avenues to the Arizona state line - a district far more Republican than the one Matheson originally won.

Though he says he wants another representative for Utah, Matheson only signed on to the current legislation because it would make the fourth seat at-large.

Hoyer said Republicans should put the bill on the floor for an "up or down" vote, and argued that the GOP is trying to slam Matheson with a political game.

"You understand what they want to do is put Jim Matheson in the position of saying, if he says no, that his state doesn't get an extra member of Congress," Hoyer said.

Hoyer added that Republicans are trying to "get Matheson," and that, "We don't have to trust them."

Jeff Lungren, a spokesman for Sensenbrenner, said, "It's disappointing that rather than address Chairman Sensenbrenner's legitimate concerns about the fairness and constitutionality of the current version of the D.C. vote legislation, Congressman Matheson has resorted to partisan political sniping."

Rep. Chris Cannon, a Utah Republican, said Republicans are "highly committed" to passing the measure.

"I don't care if this is an at-large district or whether we have to redistrict and run for re-election. What I care about is that Utah gets its fourth seat," Cannon said. "If I were a citizen of the District of Columbia and a citizen of Utah wanting the same benefit I'd be pretty upset if some narrow interest got in the way of voting rights in the District or the next six years of voting rights in Utah."

Utah was included in the legislation aimed to get the District of Columbia voting rights in Congress because it was next in line after the 2000 Census to gain another seat. Also, the Republican haven of Utah would counterbalance the Democratic District.

The now-broken compromise could well be a deathblow to the legislation. "I don't think realistically this bill has much of a chance of passing," says Forrest Maltzman, a professor of political science at George Washington University.

tburr@sltrib.com

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ROBERT GEHRKE contributed to this report.