Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee in this Congress, is passionately in support of statehood for Washington, D.C. He outlined his perspective in opening remarks at a hearing held by that panel on the governance situation in the nation’s capital, which Republicans have, like other Democratic-leaning cities, repeatedly targeted as supposedly threatened by massive crime.
Raskin also blasted the GOP obsession with belittling the government of Washington, D.C., while serious issues unfold across that city and the nation, like the scourge of deadly gun violence and real-world threats to the accessibility of basic healthcare. As Congress has an opportunity to intervene with certain policy moves in D.C., Republicans previously led an effort in Congress to disapprove of policing reform measures backed by D.C.’s leaders that covered some of the same ground as such initiatives already supported by Democrats federally. The D.C. measures included a ban on chokeholds and other asphyxiating restraints, outlining new restrictions that evidently weren’t significant enough to Republicans to garner anything but their opposition.
“There are countries on earth whose foreign ministries have issued travel warnings to their citizens about the dangers of going to America because of gun violence, which is now the leading cause of death for children under 18, surpassing car accidents, pediatric cancer, and contagious diseases,” Raskin said in the hearing. “And yet the Oversight Committee has not seen fit to call a single hearing on why massacres are increasing in America or how we can work together to stop this bloodbath.”
Yet another topic he addressed was the threat to the financial standing of the United States posed by the potential default threatened should Republicans not get their way — a way that involves massive cuts to government spending passed alongside the needed hike to the debt ceiling, which refers to a level of financial action the government can take to deal with expenses to which it’s obliged.
“Now, for their service and sacrifice for the country, Washingtonians must endure lectures about their unfitness for democracy from other people’s representatives who confuse the act of seditious conspiracy with Capitol tourism and call the convicted assailants of American police officers “political prisoners,”” Raskin added. “If our Colleagues choose to ignore the statehood petition of nearly 700,000 Americans right in front of their nose, there is not much we can do about that kind of moral indifference and smug contempt for other Americans’ rights. But at least spare everyone the Trumpian spectacle of your blaming the victims for their disenfranchisement and lack of fully comprehensive government.”
Watch the Congressman’s comments below:
