So on Thursday the Senate voted to expand the House of Representatives by two seats, with one going to the District of Columbia and the other to Utah. Apparently Utah is entitled to one because the Census hasn't been counting all those Mormon missionaries who are out of state but who permanently reside there.
DC is to get one because it has never had representation in Congress, and there mustn't be taxation without representation and so on. Harry Reid sees this as "moving to right a centuries-old wrong."
Be that as it may, it's an interesting question whether this can be squared with the Constitution. On the one hand, Article I, Section 2 says, "The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States," and of course the capital District is not a state (or State). On the other hand, the 23rd amendment (1961) grants DC a number of electors in the Electoral College "equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State." Lots of penumbras in there for the Supreme Court to work with!
My biggest worry about this is that if DC has a right to a Representative, I don't see why it isn't also entitled to two Senators. The GOP seems to be taking the view that the extra Utah seat makes up for the likely Democratic DC seat, but how are they going to prevent a creative Federal court from giving DC two Senators?
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