Meet the New Boss: For an ambitious young House Republican, overseeing the District isn't a terrible gig. You get to tell 600,000 people what to do, without fear of retribution from any voting members of Congress, and without alienating your constituents back home, who don't particularly care what the federal government's doing to a bunch of Washingtonians. Which means Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina could be a new star soon, as he was named today to head the subcommittee that watches D.C. affairs. He's no Jason Chaffetz, but who is? Gowdy's district is one of the most conservative in the Palmetto State, including Greenville and Spartanburg—two cities that don't have a whole lot in common with our own (Spartanburg has about 289,000 people, more than two-thirds of them white). Welcome, boss! -3

Obama Park: One surefire way to irritate Gowdy and the new Republican majority in Congress? Start naming things around town for President Obama. That seems to be what Councilmember Jim Graham has planned, as he reintroduced legislation today to name the park at 14th and Girard streets NW for the president. Graham first tried this in July 2009, a mere six months into Obama's term; then, it was technically illegal, thanks to a provision of the D.C. Code that bars naming things for living people. +1

Ex Post Facto: Don't be alarmed when you pick up Sunday's Kaplan Test Prep Supplement Washington Post. Much of which, if you're one of the dwindling number of locals who get home delivery service, will actually arrive on Saturday. The Post announced new features and formats for its Sunday sections today, including a tabloid-sized Style section that sounds an awful lot like another tabloid packed with information on pop culture and life in the District that you can find around town on Thursdays. But hey, if it means people are actually making money printing newspapers in Washington, we're all for it! +2

Gay Marriage Saved: The institution of same-sex marriage doesn't go back quite as long as the institution of opposite-sex marriage (or, as Carrie Prejean would put it, "opposite marriage"), but like all marriage these days, it, too, was under threat. The danger to D.C.'s same-sex marriages came from the Supreme Court. But fortunately, the court opted not to interfere with the District's marriage equality law today, refusing to take up an appeal by opponents of the law who sought to force a referendum on it. Score it as a rare win for basic fairness and justice. +3

Metro Back in Business: News that Metro's Red Line had trouble this morning shouldn't have surprised anyone; after all, there was an ice storm, and Metro is perfectly capable of having difficulty when it's warm and sunny. This time, an insulator burning on the tracks near Tenleytown slowed service, just in time for commuters arriving two hours later than usual to get stranded. By evening rush hour, things were working as normal again—which is to say, expect delays. -2

Yesterday's Needle rating: 51 Today's score: +1 Today's Needle rating: 52

Pretty Please: In the grand hierarchy of actions that seem like good ideas but won't actually amount to a whole lot, "starting a petition drive" falls somewhere a few levels of effectiveness behind "forming a blue-ribbon panel." Which is why we don't have great faith that a petition drive by local civil liberties groups against Metro's new bag-searching policy will accomplish much. Metro, after all, is only marginally responsive to the demands of riders that they keep the trains running on time; surely they wouldn't listen to reason on this unreasonable policy. But hey, at least someone's trying! +1

I Want My Bus TV: Lately, the frigid weather has made using NextBus downright painful; who wants to take their gloves off long enough to fiddle around with an app to tell them when the (nice warm) bus is going to arrive? At 14th and U streets NW, riders no longer have to worry about that, as the District has installed a large monitor displaying bus arrivals, Capital BikeShare availability, and presumably, wind chill. Eventually the screens will be installed in bus shelters around the city. For now, though, you'll still need to use NextBus to figure out the best way to get to 14th and U to check this one out. +2

City ISO Overlord: The District has about 600,000 residents and nearly as many credentialed members of the national press corps. So you'd think the chance to interfere in our municipal affairs would be hard for an ambitious House Republican to resist, if only for the obvious grandstanding opportunities. You would, apparently, be wrong; the GOP is having trouble finding someone to take on the chairmanship of the subcommittee that involves D.C. That no Republican wants the chance to rule our city may be even more of an indignity than the whole "taxation without representation" thing. Then again, maybe if no one wants the job, they'll just leave us alone? +1

Rexy Not So Sexy: Changing the quarterback didn't actually do much at all for the Redskins, who lost 33-31 to Dallas. For some reason, the fact that Rex Grossman threw four touchdowns is being taken as proof in some quarters that benching Donovan McNabb was wise; here at Washington City Paper, we're a little more old-fashioned, so we have a tough time applauding the tactic, considering the team still didn't win. Memo to Mike Shanahan: Moral victories, as Jay-Z reminds us, are for minor league coaches. (Though the way the Redskins are playing, it's understandable if Shanahan thinks that's what he is.) -2

Friday's Needle rating: 53 Today's score: +2 Today's Needle rating: 55

It's Just Lunch: One man is at the crest of his political power, having just swept to office unchallenged except by a few write-in votes, a bugler, and the Socialist Workers Party. The other? Well, he's seen better days. Such will be the backdrop as Almost Mayor Vince Gray joins President Obama for lunch on Dec. 1. Strangely, Obama didn't see fit to mention the lunch date during his televised press conference this afternoon; Gray announced it at his own event in the morning. Where they'll get together hasn't been announced yet—perhaps in an effort to keep Still Mayor Adrian Fenty from crashing the date? +2

Heeeeeere's Jason!: The elections last night didn't just send Gray officially to the Wilson Building and give the United States its first-ever orange presumptive speaker of the House—they also left Utah Republican Jason Chaffetz in charge of our fair city, at least as far as the House of Representatives is concerned. The good news: City Paper will have no shortage of material over the next two years, as Chaffetz meddles with District affairs whenever things look awry to him from his cot in the Rayburn Building. The bad news: Everything else about Chaffetz taking over. -3

Who Needs a Diploma?: The Washington Wizards' new rookie guard, John Wall, is the one making headlines lately. But D.C. United midfielder Andy Najar—who dropped out of high school in northern Virginia to join the team this season after coming up in its academy—was named Major League Soccer's rookie of the year today. That's little consolation for United fans who suffered through one of the team's worst seasons ever (but it might make the autographed Najar cards sent out to anyone who renewed season tickets a little more of a prize), but hey, at least United isn't working out JaMarcus Russell. +1

Don't Drink the Water: A few years ago, the news that fish in the Potomac River were spontaneously changing genders made a bit of a splash, then faded away. Now male fish in the Susquehanna appear to have egg cells in their testes. Might there be some pollutant that's causing this alarming phenomenon? Might some sort of government agency want to look into it? (Our bet: Probably not.) -2

Yesterday's Needle rating: 47 Today's score: -2 Today's Needle rating: 45

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

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.)

Chaffetz proffers the constitutional excuse for opposing a congressional vote for the District: "I recognize that taxation without representation is fundamentally unfair. But what should we do? I believe it is possible to give residents of Washington, D.C., a voice without violating the Constitution," he tells the Utah paper, advocating for retrocession. "Giving Maryland an additional seat in the House of Representatives raises no Constitutional questions and gives D.C. residents the representation they seek."

Hmm. So this guy's a constitutional law scholar? A judge, maybe? At least a lawyer? History buff?

Nope. Corporate PR guy.

Flickr photo by wickenden