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Maine: Utah

March 3, 2009 - 08:56 pm
NEWS FEED: Turn Maine Blue

Got gonads?

By Gerald Weinand

Sorry, but after a little more than two years of this shit, I'm just growing tired of it. I didn't work my ass off helping to elect a Democratic majority in Congress so that I could read this kind of crap every day:
Democrats may be running the House, but the National Rifle Association (NRA) can still stop a bill in its tracks.

House Democratic leaders on Tuesday pulled legislation from the floor that seemingly had nothing to do with guns because the NRA disliked it.

The bill in question would give the District of Columbia a voting member of Congress. The gun-rights lobby prefers a Senate version, which includes language amending the District's gun policies, and some suggest the NRA could make life difficult for conservative Democrats if that language is not included in the House version.

Read More at Turn Maine Blue >
There have been 27 comments posted in response to this story.

March 3, 2009 - 10:45 am
NEWS FEED: Kennebec Journal

Snowe/Collins vote to give DC a seat

By Susan M. Cover

Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins voted last week to give Washington D.C. a representative in the U.S. House.

Snowe and Collins were two of only six Republicans to support the measure. The New York Times reports that a similar bill is certain to pass the House and that President Barack Obama has indicated he will sign it.

However, the measure will end up in court as part of a Constitutional battle over whether DC can be granted a representative even though it is not a state.

The Senate version also gave Utah another seat, which would increase the size of the House from 435 to 437.

Did Snowe and Collins do the right thing?

Read More at Kennebec Journal >
There have been 25 comments posted in response to this story.

February 24, 2009 - 03:35 pm
NEWS FEED: Turn Maine Blue

Bill to give D.C. voting rights in the House passes Senate Hurdel

By Gerald Weinand

h/t JonB

Today, in a vote of 62-35, the Senate voted to send the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2009 (S. 160) to the floor for debate and an eventual vote. The bill would create a House seat for the nation's capitol for the first time since the district was created out of land taken from Maryland and Virginia in 1801.

The bill would also create another seat apportioned as per normal rules, which in this case would make a 4th district in Utah. This district is subject to move as census numbers dictate.

Eight Republicans joined the cloture vote, including both of Maine's senators.

Read More at Turn Maine Blue >
There have been 32 comments posted in response to this story.

February 23, 2009 - 10:00 pm
NEWS FEED: Turn Maine Blue

District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2009

By Gerald Weinand

Out nation's capitol, Washington, D.C., is represented in the House by Del. Eleanor Norton. This has always been the case, but with 600,000 citizens (a little less than all of North Dakota, but more than Wyoming), its representative in Congress is not allowed to vote, equal to the representative from Guam or Puerto Rico.

The District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2009 means to change that, by creating a seat for D.C. residents in the House, while also creating another seat that will be assigned to the state most deserving, which happens to be Utah (whose three existing representatives each serve about 910,000 people, so four would reduce that to about 682,000).

Read More at Turn Maine Blue >
There have been 38 comments posted in response to this story.