It looks as though Congress and the White House will both now be pushing to give DC full voting rights in the House and will expand the House to 437 members and giving Utah another seat.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29…
What does this mean then? Utah will no longer be appropiated another seat and that means the state on the bottom of the lose a seat list will get to keep that seat.
Who is at the bottom of the list, Minnesota. Who is the most odious elected official from Minnesota, Michele Bachmann. And whose congressional district is the easiest to break up out of the 8 Minnesota has? Bachmann’s.
Here is the district, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M…
While she may not be around by 2012 if we can finally stab that vampire in the heart in next year’s election, she may have just had her seat saved, by Democrats! Liberal black ones who cause housing crises! (She blamed them for the financial crisis.)
MSNBC reports that the Senate vote is on Tuesday and that last time it failed by 3 votes. This time, we’ve added 7 Democrats and seven of the eight Republicans who voted for it are still in the Senate.
And, that probably means MUCH safer lines for Matheson.
but my guess is that the House will revert back to 435 next cycle (though honestly it’s far too small right now IMO).
can have legislated seating (which is a very, very iffy thing), does Utah still get the other one?
that Bachmann runs against Klobuchar in 2012. Would ensure the end of the former’s career, and be entertaining to boot.
I’m in favor of expanding the House by a lot more (got to keep up with population), but realize that is unlikely, regardless of which party is in charge. Incumbents on both sides are not in any mood to see their influence diluted, which would happen if the House were bumped up significantly. This legislation rectifies a simple wrong, but avoids looking like a power play by giving Utah the extra seat it would have gotten anyway in 2012 early.
And don’t be so certain Republicans will gain the extra Utah seat. There is a possibility the nutty state legislature will try to cut up Matheson’s district (as they did back in 2002) by dividing up Salt Lake City between three districts instead of the two that it currently is, and give Matheson even tougher terrain. However, Matheson already proved his ability to win in rural Utah and doing that might make the new district actually winnable for an SLC-based Democrat.
Or the state legislature might recognize this and simply give Matheson all of Salt Lake City (Obama nearly won the county), leaving the other three districts solidly GOP.