People who wonder why progressives have a hard time trusting centrist Democratic politicians should maybe ask themselves what Chris Pappas (D-NH) and Joe Biden think they are doing by joining with Republicans to stomp all over the rights of the people of the District of Columbia.
As someone born in DC and raised in the DMV, I take personal offense that Republicans are using their restored Congressional power to attack the right of the people of the District to rule themselves. And I'm offended that Democrats are helping them do it.
As the Biden Administration itself once proclaimed, “For far too long, the more than 700,000 people of Washington, D.C. have been deprived of full representation in the U.S. Congress... This taxation without representation and denial of self-governance is an affront to the democratic values on which our Nation was founded.”
Denial of self-governance to DC is an affront to democratic values. Well said! The people of DC have a right to govern themselves, which includes making their own laws in line with their own values, free of the interference from representatives of far away places like, say, New Hampshire.
And yet, last month New Hampshire's own Chris Pappas was one of only 31 Democrats to vote in support of a Republican resolution to override DC home rule by repealing recent updates to the criminal code that were duly passed by the DC City Council.
I don't know why Pappas - who once co-sponsored a bill in support of DC statehood - decided that joining Republicans to sell out a cause he supported was the right move here. It seems like an affront to democratic values to me.
After all, there is no reason a voter in Hampton Beach, NH should have a say over whether a carjacker in DC's Anacostia neighborhood should face a sentence of 14 years or 40 years. That Hampton Beach voter would certainly not take kindly to such Federal interference in New Hampshire's laws.
Of course, no elected representative of the people of DC voted on this bill because DC has no voting representation in Congress.
The measure is on to the Senate, where Senator Joe Manchin(D-WV) says he'll vote for it with all the Republicans, because of course he will. New Hampshire's Senators Hassan and Shaheen better not be getting any ideas.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden - who does not have a great track record when it comes to pushing fear about crime for political advantage - says he'll sign this garbage if it gets to his desk, the right of the people of DC to self-representation be damned.
Its always interesting to me which erstwhile-allies centrist Democrats are willing to sell out. Even people who don't feel close to the issue of DC statehood, as I do, should watch what is happening here and be leery of the pattern.
More than any state in the country, the people of DC consistently support Democratic Party and vote for Democrats in Presidential elections. And this is the thanks they get: white Democratic politicians opting to negate the will of the duly-elected government of a majority Black and brown city so they can pose as "tough on crime" to voters in suburbs back home.
Can Democrats who are willing to sell out DC residents really be counted on to not sell out other groups they purport to represent? Women, for example? Or queer folks? Or Social Security recipients? Or railroad workers? Or teachers? Or immigrants?
I have my concerns.