As a part of the political deal necessary for the bill to pass, Utah also would benefit by getting a fourth seat in the House. Because of its rapid population growth, the Beehive State is likely to get a fourth seat after the next census in 2010. But if the Senate passes the bill the House enacted this week, Utah, the next state in line to get another seat, would get it sooner.
Utah's good fortune would be the result of partisan horse-trading. The bill would increase the size of the House from 435 seats to 437. One new seat would go to D.C., which likely would elect a Democrat. The second new seat would go to Utah, which would vote statewide for its new member of Congress and likely would elect a Republican.
That at-large voting in Utah, which would be temporary until after the 2010 census and redistricting, gives us heartburn because it would violate the one-person, one-vote principle. Utahns would be the only voters in the nation who could vote for two members of Congress, the one in their existing district and the one statewide.
That's a flaw. We wish it weren't in the bill, especially after the Utah Legislature went to the trouble last year to create four equally apportioned districts in anticipation of getting a fourth seat. But it's the deal that's on the table, and Utah's senators should support it.
That will put them crossways with other Republicans, who generally oppose the bill. They argue that D.C. should only get congressional representation through a constitutional amendment, because the Constitution says that only states can elect U.S. senators and representatives, and D.C. isn't a state.
Constitutional scholars disagree on this point. Some say that another provision in the Constitution which gives Congress power over D.C. allows it to provide the district with voting representation.
What the Republicans really fear is that D.C. next will demand two U.S. senators, and that would increase the Democrats' majority in that body.
But D.C. voters should be represented in the Senate as well as the House, and Utah's senators should support that principle, and Utah's interests, by voting for the bill.
