The District of Columbia's 600,000 residents came very close this spring to achieving full voting representation in the House of Representatives for the first time in history.
Unfortunately, the bipartisan bill was hijacked by the National Rifle Association, which saw it as an opportunity to strip DC's prerogative to regulate firearms. When the gun-rights provision got tacked onto the voting-representation bill, DC officials split over what to do, and the advocacy coalition splintered. The bill was withdrawn.
The Washington City Paper did a good story on the legislative shenanigans.
The bill had hinged on a deal, worked out by then-Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), that would have temporarily added a (presumably Republican) Congressional seat to Utah's delegation to balance the (assuredly Democratic) DC seat. That deal was only operative through the 2010 Census and subsequent redistricting, which would have returned the House to 435 members in 2012.
DC Vote, a scrappy little nonprofit that has run some of the most creative advocacy campaigns I've seen on any issue anywhere, is now at a crossroads. The House deal is off the table, and the next Congress is likely to be less friendly, not more, to a clean (gun free) bill. DC Vote's visionary leaders and devoted members are as frustrated as they've ever been.
Expect to see some good political theater emanating from 20th & P Sts. The persistence of taxation without representation in the nation's capital never ceases to mystify me.
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