D.C. vote plan called 'unconstitutional'

D.C. vote plan called 'unconstitutional'
Supporters vow to continue fight after Senate hurdle halts proposal

Republican lawmakers in the U.S. Senate have blocked a proposal that was intended to provide a congressional vote for the District of Columbia, and White House spokeswoman Dana Perino says the president believes that was the right thing to do.

The rejection came on a motion simply to consider the plan. Fifty-seven senators agreed, but that remained three short of the needed 60. The bill now is expected to stall for at least this year and possibly next.

Perino's response came on a question from Les Kinsolving, WND's correspondent at the White House.

"Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said of the failed effort to give D.C. a full vote in the House, 'It is clearly unambiguously unconstitutional.' And my question: The president agrees with Senator McConnell, doesn't he?" Kinsolving asked.

"We believe that Senate Bill 1257 was unconstitutional," Perino said.

The compromise plan would have expanded the U.S. House by two seats: one for the Democratic District of Columbia, and the other for the next state in line to add a seat, currently Utah, which is heavily Republican.

McConnell, R-Ky., and the White House both have maintained because the District is not a state, the bill violates the constitutional requirement that House members be chosen by the "people of the several states."

"I opposed this bill because it is clearly and unambiguously unconstitutional," McConnell said in a statement. "If the residents of the District are to get a member for themselves, they have a remedy: amend the Constitution."

The vote was the first time the full Senate had considered the D.C. voting rights issue since 1978, when it passed a constitutional amendment to give the District voting representatives in the House and Senate. That plan died seven years later after getting approval from only 16 states. It needed 38.

In a followup, Kinsolving asked whether the White House knew of any similar effort by supporters of the plan to provide a House seat to represent Puerto Rico.

"I do not," Perino said.