Those in Congress who have supported the efforts by the District of Columbia to obtain representation in Congress have given up for now. It doesn't seem this should be a "political" issue -- in the 21st century, action to correct a clear disenfranchisement of a group of our citizens should be a slam dunk -- but it is, nonetheless.
Opponents of the pending bill to deliver justice for D.C., have cited concerns that the only legal means to fix the problem is by Constitutional amendment. Republicans among them were also worried about the political effects of the District's longstanding strong Democratic majority (that's why the deal was to include an extra representative for über-Republican Utah, whose population growth will probably win it another seat after the next census anyway).
This compromise had awakened some hopes, but then came the Second Amendment issues. The District has had fairly strict gun control; the gun lobby and its Congressional supporters decided to amend the pending bill to nullify DC's gun regulations and to set limits on its power to enact future regulations. District leaders, in turn, refused to accept this amendment.
Does that seem childish? Should DC's leaders have accepted these limitations? Perhaps that would have been the smart move politically, but let's be clear that they are standing on a principle: Should the rights of a group of people to representation in Congress be infringed by preconditions on how their leaders could use those rights?) I'd say not.
No, I think it's the gun lobby and its supporters who are being venal and anti-democratic here. I believe if the District were to accept the limitations, they'd eventually find their way to the Supreme Court, where even the most conservative Justices (especially the most conservative Justices!) would find them hard to swallow. The Second Amendment is one part of the Constitution relating to a very specific right. Surely any reasoning person might conclude that a more basic right to be represented in Congress without conditions would be a higher priority? Unfortunately, not enough Congresspersons seem capable of grasping that point; those who do don't have the courage to buck the NRA.
People who don't live in the District should be grateful to DC's leaders for taking a stand; to accede would mean turning over to the NRA Congress's authority to legislate in the area of "bearing arms" (of course we're close to that already), and the judiciary's right to interpret the Second Amendment. We should look ahead a bit (as the NRA's lawyers no doubt have) to the point where success in circumscribing the District's options on gun purchase and registration would lead to efforts to legislate similar controls on the States.
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