As LL noted this morning, it seems young Jason Chaffetz of Utah is taking the lead in the House of Representatives in attempts to overturn the District's recognition of same-sex marriages.

His hometown newspapers, the Deseret News and the Salt Lake Tribune, both published stories about his involvement today.

Here's what the latter wrote:

While Chaffetz agrees he would object to the federal government telling his hometown of Alpine to recognize or not recognize gay marriage, the freshman congressman says the District of Columbia is different because it receives federal funding as the nation's capital.

"People in Salt Lake City are paying for the operation and government in the District of Columbia," Chaffetz says. He adds that he believes Congress should vote on the issue.

Um, so, congressman, you did check whether your hometown of Alpine is receiving any federal funds, right?

LL is certain you made sure that your community received no community development block grants or police bulletproof vest money or any of that stimulus money and that none of those roads in your beautiful town were built with a portion of the federal highway trust fund, right? Because that would mean Congress should get a say over how your town is run, if LL understands you correctly. More to the point, it would follow that, LL, as a federal taxpayer, would be entitled to congressional representation he doesn't currently have.

And surely you made especially certain that your hometown fire department didn't receive, in 2006, a nearly million-dollar handout from the Department of Homeland Security in order to hire firefighters, right?

Wrong.

Flickr photo by wickenden

In yesterday's Loose Lips Daily, LL referred icily to the anti-District voting rights stance of Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who holds firmly that the D.C. House Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional. LL said the new, famously office-dwelling congressman is "playing armchair constitutional expert," seeing as the man holds no law degree and spent his professional career as a political aide and public-relations man.

LL's comment earned him this comment from "Trenton," who seems to run a conservative blog in Utah: "While your cheap shot at Rep. Jason Chaffetz might make you feel better, it only tells me you have no serious argument to make in that debate."

You're right, Trenton: LL has no serious argument to make in that debate---just like Jason Chaffetz shouldn't. You see, LL holds no law degree and has spent his professional career as a smartass alt-weekly reporter.

LL is perfectly willing to stipulate that there are very serious constitutional questions involved with the DCHVRA. Highly respected legal scholars have taken differing, equally well-reasoned positions---in some cases in ways that oppose their political interests---e.g., liberal law prof Jonathan Turley says DCHVRA is unconstitutional; conservative law prof Viet Dinh says its perfectly constitutional.

Here's the beautiful thing about the United States of America: We have an entire branch of government devoted to sorting out these questions. And it's not Congress.

Nope---Congress' job isn't to sort out matters of constitutionality. That's for the federal judiciary to decide (thank you, John Marshall). Congress' job is to conduct oversight of the federal government and to pass legislation in keeping with its principles and policy objectives. That's not to say Congress should go legislating willy-nilly where there's already well-settled law---say, by passing a flag-burning ban---but a D.C. House vote is not a well-settled situation.

If Congress believes as a matter of principle and policy that the nearly 600,000 residents of the District of Columbia should have a vote in Congress, it should legislate thusly. If it doesn't, that's fine---but members like Chaffetz (and there's plenty of them on both sides of the aisle) shouldn't hide behind the trope that such a move wouldn't be constitutional.

That's not what you're here to decide, congressman---you need to decide whether D.C. deserves to be afforded a vote, with Utah gaining one in the process. If you think that leaving the federal district disenfranchised is a worthy policy goal, say so. But leave the questions of constitutionality to the courts.

Jason Chaffetz, a Republican about to take Utah's 3rd district congressional seat, says he's not going to support efforts to give D.C. a vote in Congress. So says the Deseret News.

Yeah, yeah---GOP'er against District voting rights; no news there. Why should anyone care what this guy thinks?

Well, the former BYU placekicker is the first member of the Utah delegation to come out against the so-called Davis solution (after now-retired Va. Rep. Tom Davis), which seeks to appease Republican misgivings over handing Democrats an extra House vote by giving the GOP another vote in Utah, which was narrowly screwed out of an extra seat in the last reapportionment. He also replaces a fellow Republican, Chris Cannon, who had supported the Davis bill. (Chaffetz challenged Cannon from the right, running mainly on immigration and garnering George W. Bush's endorsement.)

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