The House of Representatives has five members who never vote on the floor: they're called "delegates," and they hail from the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, and American Samoa.

The House of Representatives has five members who never vote on the floor: They're called "delegates," and they hail from the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, and American Samoa. Because four of them are Democrats (the lone Republican is from Puerto Rico), Speaker Pelosi would like to ratchet up their powers, which are currently limited to voting in committee. She stops short of proposing that they vote on final legislation, which the Constitution strictly forbids, but would grant them the ability to vote on just about everything else, including amendments. She should back off. The category of delegate was invented to give a voice to people who lived in territories that were on the verge of becoming states. There are those who seek statehood for D.C. and Puerto Rico, of course, but neither goal is anywhere close to attainment, and nobody seriously thinks that the roughly 60,000 people of American Samoa--who could fit comfortably into many football stadiums--should have it. Pelosi's move may be a clever consolidation of Democratic power, but it doesn't have much to do with democracy.