Not to Worry

There seems to be a great deal of consternation in some about the recent push to allow for the District of Columbia to have a voting representative in Congress in exchange for a fourth Congressional seat for Utah. I'm really not exactly sure why some people, particularly conservatives, have that big of a problem with this.

Ultimately, the following things are accomplished if such a deal goes through:

• The District will have voting representation, which means maybe the "Taxation Without Representation" business goes away from their license plates.
• More than likely, the new Democratic vote from D.C. will be offset with a new Republican vote from Utah (likely, but not a slam dunk).
• The Electoral College will increase by one vote, ensuring one more GOP vote for 2008.

Now the argument could be made that the permanent establishment of such a voting member would result in a net decrease for the GOP of one seat starting with the 2012 Reapportionment. However I don't understand why, once again in the interest of cooperation and offsetting, the Public Law 62-5 can't be amended to allow for 437 members of the House instead of 435.

The idea of allowing D.C. to have a vote while allowing a new member for Utah is the kind of common sense bipartisan solution we haven't seen much of recently. Besides, I'd much rather see this solution come to pass than retrocession, which would be bad news for Marylanders.