District of Columbia residents lost again today in their 200-year-old battle to get a vote in Congress.
House leaders gave up on a bill that would have granted the vote to the District’s 60,000 residents, but only if they get rid of Washington’s tough gun control laws.
“The price was too high,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said in announcing that legislation to give the District a full-voting representative for the first time would be pulled down.
The District’s current delegate in Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), can only vote in committees and not on the floor.
The House passed a bill in 2007 that would have created a District representative, who almost certainly would have been a Democrat, and also create a new seat in Utah which almost certainly would have gone to a Republican.
The Senate passed a similar bill last year but attached an amendment that would have allowed for the open carry of weapons in the District and inside government buildings.
The gun amendment “made it absolutely impossible” to sell the bill to District residents, Norton said.
Don't you find it amazing that they were asking for such an outlandish thing, "open carry of weapons in the District and inside government buildings?" It makes you wonder if the unrealistic demand was simply a way of blocking the possibility of another Democratic vote in Congress.
What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.
If they are going to make a law that goes against part of the Constitution, it should at least come at the cost of creating a law that enforces another part of the Constitution.
ReplyDeleteSounds to me like the Democrats simply do not want the residents of DC to enjoy the same rights as the rest of the country. They do not want the residents of DC to have basic rights such as representation and gun ownership.
ReplyDeleteThe anti-freedom movement is alive and well in the Democratic party.
Mikeb30200:
ReplyDeleteI gave up wondering about the GOP's lack of scruples, ethics and honesty a long, long time ago.
"Sounds to me like the Democrats simply do not want the residents of DC to enjoy the same rights as the rest of the country. They do not want the residents of DC to have basic rights such as representation and gun ownership."
Yeah, because it's, like, totally legal to carry guns into public buildings everywhere else.
Article 1`Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution.
ReplyDelete"The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states, and the electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature."
DC is not a state. It has never been a state, and it has no state legislature.
To give DC "voting rights" you have to pretend article 1 section 2 doesn't exist.
I'm not surpised you support this, since you routinely pretend that the parts of the Constitution you don't like simply don't exist.
"Yeah, because it's, like, totally legal to carry guns into public buildings everywhere else."
ReplyDeleteActually it is in a lot of places.
I notice MikeB and Demo have nothing to say about the fact that DC is openly trying to violate Article 1 Section 2 of the Constitution......
ReplyDelete