Photo by brianmka

After yesterday’s announcement that House leaders were shelving legislation that would grant the District a single vote in Congress, the measure appeared to be all but dead. Activists and proponents of the legislation disagreed with that assessment, though, arguing that it wasn’t the proposal that was at fault — it was merely the timing. They’d get the legislation, which would also grant Utah an additional seat in the House (at least until the next Census), back on the floor soon enough.

But will they? The legislation has been floating around since 2006, when it was originally introduced by now retired Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) and D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton as the perfect pragmatic compromise — one seat for Democratic D.C., one for Republican Utah. Since then, activists and residents have hitched their wagons to the hope that the bill — though only a small step toward full representation — would get the District further in the fight than it had ever been. Opponents, led by the Statehood Green Party, derisively noted that the legislation would grant nothing more than “Taxation with One-Third Representation.”