Some folks may remember last summer’s dust-up over this. There was a bill before Congress to get the District of Columbia a seat in the House. John Ensign tacked the Second Amendment Enforcement Act onto it, and it became something of a poison pill. Democrats were unable to excise his amendment, and if the District was to get a house seat, they’d have to comply with the Heller ruling.
Rather than risk abandoning the District’s unconstitutional and disastrous regulations, Congress chose to simply drop the whole matter completely.
Well, history repeats itself, though rarely this quickly. This year’s version quickly found the Ensign amendment attached to it, and again Congress chose not to decide.
Paul Helmke’s response was to gloat, calling the whole thing a “Faustian bargain” and voicing his pleasure that the District would be sticking to its guns, even if it cost them something advocates of DC statehood consider to be a huge priority. Continued...