D.C. Rights Group Takes on Montana Senator Tester

by: Matthew Koehler

Wed Jul 21, 2010 at 06:57:03 AM MST

"The group is now taking on Montana Sen. Jon Tester and Mississippi Rep. Travis Childers, sponsors of a bill that would eliminate any locally enacted firearms regulations within the District. Panetta said if their bill became law, "anybody would be free to walk around with a semiautomatic rifle in D.C. ... It's a slap in the face to local governments everywhere, and was only done to gain cheap political points with the National Rifle Association."

The group is running a radio ad in Montana, charging Tester with ignoring Montana's interests and wasting time on D.C. issues. The spot says Tester is not doing his job as an elected representative of the Treasure State, and that if he cares so much about District affairs, he can always resign from the Senate and run for D.C. Council."

Is Baucus hurting Montana by filibustering the DC voting rights bill?

by: Jay Stevens

Tue Mar 11, 2008 at 10:04:39 AM MST

You see, the people who live in our nation's capital, Washington D.C., have never had representation in the Senate or the House, and for the first time, we are only 3 votes away from getting the legislation passed to right a 200 year old wrong. And your senator, Max Baucus, is one of the ones stopping it from passing.

(By the way, Cece's not the only one angry with our senior Senator over this issue. It appears to have pushed Wulfgar! over the edge.)

I've actually written on this subject before, and I don't understand the arguments against extending representation to a city, as Cece pointed out, with a population greater than Wyoming.

Not only would giving a Representative to DC only "dilute" Montana's House representation by about 0.0011 percent, Montana is actually over-represented in Congress because, despite our small population, we have two Senators representing us in Congress.

The deal would also grant Utah another House seat, which would likely go to the GOP, balancing out the fact that a DC Representative would likely be a Democrat. So neither party gains an advantage.

But the most inane part of this filibuster is that, by blocking this bill, Senator Baucus may actually be hurting Montana's chance at getting a second House seat.  David Sirota, quoting from a 2001 Billings Gazette article:

Montana will have just one representative in the U.S. House for at least another 10 years. The state failed to meet population growth standards needed to reclaim its second congressional seat, U.S. Census results released Thursday showed...the state grew 12.9 percent over the past 10 years, but missed gaining a second House seat by 8,168 people, according to the nonpartisan research group Election Data Services of Washington, D.C...Only Utah "missed getting another congressional seat by a narrower margin; it lacked 856 people."

Got that? If the DC voting rights bill is passed, Montana moves up to the front of the line for a new House seat after the next census. If this bill doesn't pass, as Sirota wrote, "Montana will likely be stuck with just one House seat for another decade."