U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- Capitol Hill Democrats are rushing to give the District of Columbia statehood, a crusade that has been going on for at least three decades and which critics insist is nothing more than a raw power grab.
On Thursday, the House voted 216-208 to pass H.R. 51. Prior to the vote, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy stated, “The Democrats’ D.C. statehood scheme is about two things: consolidating power and enacting radical policies. The American people see right through this blatant power grab.”
Appearing on Fox News, Congressman James Comer (R-KY), ranking member on the House Oversight and Reform Committee, noted, “They (the District) shouldn’t be a state because our Founding Fathers made it clear they wanted the capitol city to be independent of any state.”
The committee passed statehood legislation last week and Thursday is supposed to see full House action.
When Washington, D.C. (for “District of Columbia”) was created, Maryland and Virginia each ceded land for the purpose.
“This vote this week on making Washington DC the 51st state is about one thing,” Comer said, “creating two new Democrat Senate seats, that’s all. We can argue the merits, I can give you dozens of reasons it’s a bad idea, but at the end of the day it’s all about a Democrat political power grab to create two new Democrat Senate seats so they can end the filibuster, and they can pass all the liberal progressive legislation that Nancy Pelosi is forcing down the throats of the Democrats in the House. So I’m going to do everything in my power to be against this bill and I think every Republican in both the House and the Senate will vote against D.C. statehood.”
At risk is any chance of ever again seeing a Republican majority in the Senate. The District is solidly Democrat. With Democrats perpetually in charge of the Senate, there could never again be a conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, and Democrats might be able to expand the court to 13 members, so the current majority would be quickly outnumbered.
It could mean no possibility of a pro-Second Amendment ruling coming from the high court, and potential for a reversal at some future date of both the Heller and McDonald Second Amendment rulings.
As noted recently by Alan Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, packing the Supreme Court would be “an attempt to overturn the Supreme Court’s landmark Heller and McDonald rulings affirming the individual Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.” He called the effort “an outrage.”
As reported by CNBC, the “Biden administration on Tuesday formally threw its support behind a long-shot bid from Democrats to make Washington, D.C., the 51st state.”
“The legislation, H.R. 51, is expected to pass[ it did] in the House but is likely to hit roadblocks in the Senate, where 60 votes are required to overcome the filibuster,” CNBC said.
The Hill noted that D.C. statehood is a top priority for Democrats, who seem to be grabbing all the power they can.
According to the Washington Post, “the bill is likely to face significant hurdles in the Senate. Because of the filibuster, the legislation needs the support of 60 senators to advance. Democrats hold 50 seats in that chamber, and Vice President Harris, a statehood supporter, can cast a tie-breaking vote. But not all Democratic senators have expressed support for the legislation.
“Still,” the newspaper reported, “advocates have pointed to a record number of co-sponsors in the Senate and the House as indicators of what they say is the tremendous progress that the statehood cause has made since it first failed in the House nearly 30 years ago.”
Wednesday morning, two more senators signed on as co-sponsors, Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) and John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), bringing the total to 44. Both are gun control supporters.
Comer, the WaPo noted, “suggested that Democrats wanted statehood so they could prioritize ‘defunding the police, packing the Supreme Court and enacting the Green New Deal.’”
It might also mean Congress would be unlikely to pass pro-gun-rights legislation unless a tidal wave of pro-gun conservatives were to occur, as happened in 1994 when gun owners descended on the polls in reaction to Democrat passage of the Brady Handgun law (1993) and Clinton Crime Bill (1994), throwing out more than 50 Democrat members of Congress on Election Day.
The newspaper noted, “The bill would shrink the federal district to a two-mile enclave that includes federal buildings such as the Capitol, Supreme Court and White House. The rest of the city’s residential and commercial areas would become the State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth, honoring the abolitionist Frederick Douglass.”
A Second Washington State?
That might create confusion for more than 7 million citizens in the current state of Washington in the Pacific Northwest. It is currently considered a “blue” state politically, but many residents are growing tired of three-term Gov. Jay Inslee and the Seattle-dominated Legislature. Outside of Seattle and the I-5 corridor, Evergreen State residents have a diminishing opinion of Democrats as they face high gasoline taxes, increasing taxes of other kinds, and continuing regulations related to the COVID-19 outbreak more than a year ago.
About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
