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Reid works on 60 votes for D.C.-Utah bill

By Thomas Burr
The Salt Lake Tribune

Published September 13, 2007 1:10 am

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated.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 - The Senate will decide Tuesday whether to proceed to a final vote on a bill that would give Utah a fourth House member and allow residents of the District of Columbia to have a full-voting member for the first time.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Wednesday he will bring the measure to the floor and is working with sponsors of the legislation to get the 60 votes necessary to get to final passage. Supporters say they have enough votes to pass the bill but are not sure they can beat a filibuster of the measure.

"The votes are very close," Reid told reporters. "I think this is something the District of Columbia and Utah deserve."

The House passed the legislation earlier this year.

Even if the Senate does proceed to the final vote and passes the D.C.-Utah bill, President Bush's advisers have counseled him to veto it. Supporters are lobbying the Senate and the White House, saying that the bill is akin to voting rights legislation of the past.

The bill is primarily geared to give the nearly 600,000 residents of the nation's capital their first full-voting member in the House, but that likely Democratic member would be balanced with a seat for Republican-dominated Utah. The state barely missed out on getting a fourth seat after the 2000 Census.

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