House to eliminate the DC vote
 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- One of the first acts of the new Republican-controlled House is to take away the floor voting rights of six delegates representing areas such as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and American Samoa.
Five of those delegates are Democrats, while one, from the Northern Marianas Islands, is an independent.

The GOP decision to rescind the ability of delegates to vote on amendments on the House floor was the predictable outcome of a longtime dispute.

Democrats extended those voting rights in 1993 when they controlled the House. Republicans disenfranchised the delegates when they became the majority in 1995, and Democrats restored delegate rights when they regained control in 2007.


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Kinda makes you wonder if the majority of these delegates were GOP if this would have been done.

Hmmph. I wonder what my voters' registration card is good for now, other than lighting it on fire and warming my hands with it for 10 seconds.

Whatever else one may think of this, the delegates in question have not been disenfranchised. The reporter needs to learn what that word means.

Um I actually don't see how this is a big deal. It seems to me that the reporter is misrepresenting what this means. While yes the delegates had the right to vote in the Committee of the Whole in the past, they were not allowed to cast the deciding vote, so in reality the vote really meant nothing.

Right. Largely symbolic.

So, one could argue.. why take it away then?

Perhaps because it's not permitted under the Constitution?

Oh, yeah, that's not necessarily a good argument, because so many other things fit the same bill, but one has to start somewhere.

Anybody who doesn't agree with DC statehood can eat shit and die.

j/k don't die

Is it expressly prohibited in the Constitution?

DC isn't a state for a reason. Things make better sense as they are.

It would continue to make sense if there weren't a bunch of people living there, but there are.

No they don't.

This is a debatable point. The Constitution clearly gives the House the authority to make its own rules.

And there is the whole "no taxation without representation" argument -- granted, not a constitutional argument, but certainly an argument woven into the woof and warp of Independence.

It's not addressed in the Constitution at all, because the Constitution doesn't contemplate congressional delegates from DC or other territories. Clearly, delegates cannot be voting members of the House of Representatives, as that is limited to the representatives of the states.

The compromise that has been struck so as to give residents (taxpayers) of DC and the territories some voice in Congress is to allow, by House Rules, delegates (not representatives) to vote in committee and have voice on the floor of the House. What is at issue in this particular instance is when the House is acting as a Committee of the Whole.

^^2nd