Norton Blasts Rubio for Sacrificing D.C. Local Laws to Bolster His Presidential Bid

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today assailed Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), who is expected to announce his candidacy for president today, for once again demonstrating that he has targeted the District of Columbia's local gun safety laws to "serve his own unabashed political purposes." Rubio had not introduced any D.C. gun bill until shortly before speaking alongside other Republican presidential candidates at the National Rifle Association's (NRA) annual convention last Friday and in preparation for his run for president. In his April 10 speech at the NRA convention, Sen. Rubio bragged that he "took action to roll back D.C.'s restrictive gun laws," a local independent jurisdiction he does not represent and whose residents cannot vote for or against him in local elections. According to the Washington Post, the NRA upgraded Rubio's rating from a B-plus to an A after he introduced his D.C. gun bill on March 26, a rare non-election year action, even though he was not expected to be rerated until 2016.

Bills to eliminate D.C.'s gun laws altogether have long been a staple of far-right Republicans, but Rubio's bill is an extreme version of even those prior bills. Norton said the major provisions of Rubio's gun bill read like a prescription for an America without gun safety laws. The Rubio bill includes a litany of extreme gun provisions: permitting assault weapons; permitting large capacity magazines; creating a gun show loophole by allowing private sales with no background checks; permitting unlimited purchases of guns; making D.C. a "shall issue" jurisdiction for concealed carry of handguns, requiring D.C. to issue a concealed carry license; requiring D.C. to enter into reciprocity agreements to allow out-of-state licensees to carry in D.C.; permitting D.C. or out-of-state licensees to carry a firearm anywhere in D.C., except where a commercial or residential property owner prohibits possession, or in a D.C. government building with certain security features, but no property owner may prohibit a lessee from possessing on the property; allowing an out-of-state licensee to be considered a D.C. licensee for purposes of the federal Gun Free School Zones Act; prohibiting D.C. from passing any gun laws in the future beyond those in federal law; permitting D.C. residents to buy handguns from a federal firearms license in Maryland and Virginia, subject to the laws of the respective state and D.C.; and eliminating D.C.'s 10-day waiting period for purchase of a firearm.

Norton said that the Rubio bill, besides being undemocratic, shows reckless disregard for the vulnerability of the federal presence in the nation's capital at a time of ISIS and other radical extremist groups. She said that encouraging private sales of assault battlefield weapons with unlimited rounds of ammunition to any and every one without a background check exposes everyone from the foreign dignitaries riding in motorcades in the nation's capital to the high-level federal officials who frequent restaurants and other public places and are on city streets daily.

"The honorable way to run for president is to stand on your own two feet, not hijack the public safety laws of a local jurisdiction whose residents cannot vote yes or no on your actions," Norton said. "Instead, Senator Rubio has chosen a cheap way to raise his NRA rating from ‘B-plus' to ‘A' on the backs of the laws of local Americans with a radical bill at odds with the expressed will and local interests of the residents of the District of Columbia. Worse, Senator Rubio dishonors his own often-voiced principles that the federal government should get out of the way of local government and in favor of local control. Instead, he has gotten in the way of local government in the nation's capital, which was granted home rule decades ago. Who can trust a presidential candidate who tosses aside his own principles and plunders the local jurisdiction of American citizens who have no way to fight back?"

Norton defeated every effort last Congress to block or overturn D.C.'s gun laws, including a House-passed amendment to the fiscal year 2015 D.C. Appropriations bill that would have blocked D.C. from spending its local funds to enforce its local gun laws.