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Senator Rand Paul’s Unprecedented Attempt to Wipe Out Important D.C. Laws All at Once

July 17, 2012
Blog

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), who I know has been a student of history and of the Constitution, filed amendments in a committee last month that would have overturned D.C. laws. As a result, a bipartisan group of Senators withdrew their budget autonomy bill for the District of Columbia on the advice of city officials, including me. Senator Paul, without so much as a word with any representative of the city, sought to nullify D.C. laws affecting public safety, reproductive health, and workers' rights that local elected officials had enacted. His actions contradict his stated beliefs in small and local government and what I am certain is his belief in basic democracy as well.

The Senator said his amendments were a good way to call attention to some issues he favors and that Congress has the authority to unilaterally impose laws on D.C. because of its jurisdiction over the District of Columbia. Oh, really? What control does Congress have over locally raised funds and local laws in a nation founded by men who went to war to ensure local control and local accountability? Has the Senator ever heard of the D.C. Home Rule Act of 1973, where a Republican president and a Democratic congress gave the District the right to govern itself? Even if Congress, in the name of democracy, had not done so, should members of a federal body, in a democratic republic, ever nullify local laws to merely advertise their personal views?

It was as if this city were nothing but a plaything and not a jurisdiction of more than 600,000 American citizens who have fought and died in every war, including the war that created the United States of America, of more than 600,000 citizens who pay the second highest federal taxes per capita in the United States, of more than 600,000 citizens, one of whom was killed while serving in Afghanistan last month. It is as if the Senator thinks that the more than 600,000 American citizens who live in the nation's capital are not entitled to equal citizenship. We can only hope this was a misunderstanding.

Both the American public and, increasingly, Republican members of Congress understand well what is at issue. In the House, for example, there is bipartisan support for D.C. budget autonomy from Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA), chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has jurisdiction over D.C., and from Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell (R). Most gratifying of all, the most recent independent poll shows that 81% of Republicans and 78% of Democrats in our country believe that Congress should not interfere with D.C.'s local affairs or budget. I cannot believe that Senator Paul would not want to be counted in that number.