Ohio: Jonathan Riskind

Presidents wake up every day wondering whether terrorists will attack Americans and whether they will be judged to have failed to protect the homeland if that happens.

Presidents make decisions.

Members of Congress make speeches.

Is that unfair? Perhaps a little. Presidents can hem and haw and speechify with the best of them, and lawmakers sometimes take courageous, politically unpopular stands and cast votes that could cost them their jobs come the next election.

But being president has to be, no contest, the loneliest job in the world -- just look at the way they age (see the before and after photos of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush as recent examples) during their time in the White House.

Sen. George V. Voinovich was one of a few Republican senators to vote yes last week on granting District of Columbia residents a House member with full voting rights.

The bill passed 61-37, and a similar measure is expected to be approved by the House as soon as this week.

The Ohio Republican has been a longtime supporter of voting rights for the District.

The District of Columbia

is populated with mostly Democratic-leaning voters and a new House member likely would be a Democrat. The bill balances that by

offering another seat to Utah, a GOP-leaning state. But most Republicans oppose the

measure because they say it

is unconstitutional to let a nonstate have a full House member.

By a vote of 60-38, the Senate passed the bill hours after the House approved an identical package by a vote of 246-183. Only three Senate Republicans and no House Republicans supported the measure, which now awaits President Barack Obama's signature.

Although most senators voted shortly after 5:30 p.m., the 60th and final vote was not cast until 10:46 p.m. by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. Brown had been in Mansfield for a service for his mother, Emily Campbell Brown, who died Feb. 2 at age 88.

The White House arranged to fly Brown to Washington last night on a government plane after concluding he could not have reached the Capitol by a regular commercial flight.