President George W. Bush today formally declared his intention to veto legislation that would grant the District a voting seat in the House of Representatives. In a Statement of Administration Policy released by the Office of Management and Budget, the Bush administration stated that “the bill violates the Constitution’s provisions governing the composition and election of the United States Congress” and that any congressional endorsement would be swiftly vetoed.

The statement quoted the section of the Constitution in which the composition of the House of Representatives is limited to members chosen by the people of the “several states.” According to the Bush administration and several legal experts, including a recent brief by the Congressional Research Service, since the District is not a state any move to grant it voting representation would require a constitutional amendment. A number of legal experts, including conservative heavyweights like Kenneth Starr and Viet Dinh, have claimed otherwise, noting that the Constitution also grants Congress exclusive rights over the District. Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), an ardent conservative, publicly sided with this position over the weekend.

If it actually reached his desk, this bill could potentially be Bush’s second ever veto (the first and only veto he’s followed through on was a stem cell research bill last July), though the president has suddenly been threatening a lot more vetoes since the Democrats took control of Congress.

This fight is clearly coming down to a legal battle over what the Constitution says, what the framers intended and how far Congress can go in proposing a remedy. The House is set to vote on the legislation in the coming weeks; it then moves to the Senate, where its prospects are slim. We’d like to see the legislation pass, if only to give the courts the chance to definitively establish what it would take to remedy the District’s historic disenfranchisement. Of course, should the legislation die in the Senate, a move towards a constitutional amendment will be the next necessary step. And if anyone is truly serious about democracy — President Bush included — resolving this injustice should be an obvious priority.