Cleaver Presides Over the House as the U.S. Territories and Washington, D.C. Get a Vote in Congress

Washington, D.C. – Today, the House of Representatives passed legislation that would increase the size of the 435-member House on most matters by giving votes to Delegates from four U.S. territories and the District of Columbia. 

Congressman Cleaver, who was designated by the Speaker of the House to preside over the Chamber, was in the Chair to announce the vote. “The yea’s are 228 the nays are 188 the motion to reconsider is laid on the table and agreed to without objection.” And with that, the House moved to the final vote to grant the delegates a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The proposal allows the elected members from Washington, D.C., American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands a vote when the House sits in the “Committee of the Whole,” a parliamentary device used during most of the debate, and while amending and voting on legislation. Four of the members involved are Democrats, and one, the resident commissioner from Puerto Rico, is a Republican. 

The idea is not new, but sadly, it is still controversial. Democrats put it in place in 1993-94, marking the first increase in the House's voting membership since it was expanded to 435 in 1913 after the 1910 census. 

The expansion has survived court challenges to its constitutionality, but Republicans abolished voting rights for the territories' members when they took over the House in 1995. Democrats have vowed ever since to bring back these territories voice in our democracy. 

“They are members, and they and their constituents should be allowed to have their voices heard,” said Cleaver, “They represent five million people who do not have a voice in a government that is supposed to represent them.” 

“We have five people here sent by their constituents to the House but (who) do not have an opportunity to express their view in a public way,” Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said on the House floor last Friday. “The five get to vote in committees and can participate in floor debates, but without the rule change have no vote.”

Under the proposal, the five would normally be allowed to vote, but if any vote falls within a five-vote margin, the Committee of the Whole would adjourn and the regular 435-member House would vote again. This requirement helps meet the constitutional objections that were raised in the early 1990s. 

“This strikes home to those of us in the Fifth District. We lost a young man last fall that lived in Independence who called American Samoa his home. That tiny territory has the highest per capita casualty rate in Iraq of any other State,” said Cleaver. “Residents of these territories are fighting and dying for our country. We owe them a voice in Congress.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has also promised to push separate legislation to give the District of Columbia permanent, full voting status in the House. 

Emanuel Cleaver, II is the U.S. Representative for Missouri's Fifth Congressional District, which includes Kansas City, Independence, Lee's Summit, Raytown, Grandview, Sugar Creek, Belton, Raymore and Peculiar, Missouri. He is a member of the exclusive House Financial Services Committee.