SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 7 , 2019. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A
P
olitical eyes are focused on the 2020 elections,
when voters get to decide whether to elect a new
president and vice president or keep the ones they
have. The presidential race, however, is not the
only game in town.
In 2020, the District has races of its own to decide.
Unlike the fight for the White House, which gets
decided on Nov. 3, six of the seven D.C. contests will be
effectively resolved months earlier, on June 2. That is
primary election day, a nd in this heavily Democratic town,
a Democratic primary victory is tantamount to clinching
the general election.
The exception to this is one of the two races for at-large
D.C. Council seats, which will be decided in the general
election under terms of the Home Rule Act.
Of the seven city contests, the election for delegate to
the House of Representatives is least likely to be an
attention-getter. The incumbent, Del. Eleanor Holmes
Norton (D), has decided to seek a 16th term. Unless an
experienced and exceptionally skilled figure appears out of
nowhere, Norton’s a shoo-in. Newbies get nowhere against
her.
The six remaining ballot entries (representing nearly
half of the 13-member council) are on the market: two
at-large council seats and the Wards 2, 4, 7 and 8 seats,
occupied, respectively, by David Grosso (I), Robert
C. White Jr. (D) , Jack Evans (D), Brandon T. Todd (D),
Vincent C. Gray (D) and Trayon White Sr. (D).
At issue: Do today’s D.C. voters much care about these
council races — or the council itself?
Maybe the reason people in the District don’t seem to
care is that they thought D.C. government had been pretty
much cleaned up after the scandals of 2012 and 2013, when
council members Michael A. B rown, Kwame R. B rown and
Harry Thomas Jr. pleaded guilty to federal corruption
charges, Marion Barry got censured for taking cash from
contractors with business before the council and Jim
Graham got reprimanded for intervening in the city
lottery. Those folks are long out of office.
But the D.C. government’s problems are far from over.
Just this year, the longest-serving council member,
Evans, has faced a federal investigation, an FBI raid on his
home and a $20,000 ethics board fine for using his
position as a lawmaker for personal gain; he lost his seats
on the Metro board and the finance committee.
Meanwhile, the District has become a contract hustler’s
paradise: Note the disgusting award of a rigged, sole-
source $215 million contract to operate sports betting in
the city.
Government oversight is a major council responsibility.
D.C. lawmakers should be monitoring the actions of the
executive branch, including programs and policies imple-
mented by Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) and her adminis-
tration. The council, on behalf of taxpayers, ought to be
examining whether programs are performing as intended,
within both the budget and the law.
Not so on this council’s watch, under the insipid and
irresolute leadership of Chairman Phil Mendelson (D).
Members, by and large, seem more interested in aggran-
dizing themselves — which they do to perfection and often
at each other’s expense — than in taking oversight
seriously.
Concerns about waste, fraud and abuse seem to have
taken a holiday. Predatory landlords have been having a
field day, at t he expense of tenants, while D.C. Department
of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs housing inspectors
collect paychecks while skating through their jobs. The
council whimpers.
Then there’s g un violence: children afraid to walk to and
from school and bodies falling all over town. The media’s
new standard of measurement: Are shootings “non-life-
threatening”? City leadership’s solution? Free Metro and
bus rides for kids, and send in city-paid violence “inter-
rupters.”
A deputy mayor for education and schools chancellor
are forced to split the scene after bypassing the school
system’s competitive lottery system. Inflated graduation
rates exposed by the media. School budget overruns
detected by the city auditor. Hand-wringing at t he council.
On top of that, the council now has a solid bloc of
lawmakers who are more responsive to outside cause-
oriented special interests than to the general public. Think
decriminalizing of prostitution, guaranteeing universal
paid family leave and making the District a medical
marijuana mecca.
That said, let’s look at who’s on deck next year.
Evans told me he has not decided whether to seek
reelection. I’m told the only Evans fundraising now
underway is for contributions to his legal defense fund. A
crowd of candidates are seeking to replace him — almost
as many as the number of federal prosecutors on his trail.
To dd has declared and is running hard. Left-leaning
groups are out to get him, in part because he’s seen as
Bowser’s protege. They have settled on political novice
Janeese Lewis George as their standard-bearer. She has got
a lot of catching up to do.
Gray has indicated that he’s seeking reelection. Trayon
White is seeking reelection. A couple of would-be challeng-
ers are sniffing around. But he’s w ired in to the community
and is good at retail politics.
Robert White hasn’t yet responded to my inquiry.
Grosso’s staff told me he is “still weighing his options.”
C’mon, it’s either a council job or what?
Again: Do today’s D.C. voters much care about these
council races or the council itself? If they do, they might
want to start telling these incumbent candidates what
they expect from them.
[email protected]COLBERT I. KINGDo D.C. voters care
about the council?
L
iberals often wonder where conservatives get
the notion that they are hated and despised.
Wonder n o more: Just l ook a t the San Francis-
co Board of Supervisors’ resolution labeling
the National Rifle Association a “domestic terrorist
organization.”
Words m atter, a nd there are few words that stigma-
tize a person f aster t han calling him o r her a terrorist.
A terrorist by definition is someone who engages in
terrorism, and terrorism i s defined as “the s ystematic
use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a
population and thereby to bring about a particular
political objective.” To be a terrorist organization,
therefore, the NRA would have to intentionally en-
courage and support the use of violent attacks on
U.S. citizens with the intent of creating general fear so
as to force s ubmission to its political agenda.
The NRA clearly does not do that. It does not
advocate, fund or support violence, nor does it try to
create “a climate of fear” t o advance its policies. It
does support a n expansive view of gun rights, but that
is not a terrorist act — unless p olitical disagreement is
now a criminal offense.
But that is exactly what the resolution says. It
contends that any use of a firearm with the “intent to
endanger, directly or indirectly, the safety of one or
more individuals” is “terrorist activity.” In other
words, every murderer is a terrorist i f they used a gun,
regardless of whether they had any political motives
behind their act. It t hen states that “the National Rifle
Association through its advocacy has armed those
individuals who would and have committed acts of
terrorism” (emphasis added). You can’t get clearer
than that: Constitutionally protected speech sup-
porting the private ownership of guns is an act of
terrorism.Nor is the resolution isolated to NRA leadership.
While it states that the l eadership “ promotes extrem-
ist positions, in defiance of the views of a majority of
its membership,” i t also s tates that “any individual or
member of an organization” commits a terrorist act
by giving support to a group that this person “reason-
ably should know” gives “material support” t o any
“individual [who] has committed or plans to commit
a terrorist act.” It closes the noose around NRA
members’ necks by stating that the N RA “ promote[s]
gun ownership and incite[s] gun owners to acts of
violence.” Congratulations, average NRA member:
Your $30 o ne-year m embership makes you a terrorist.
This is McCarthyism, pure and simple. Wisconsin
Sen. Joseph McCarthy was rightly condemned for
trying t o stigmatize the American l eft in the 1950s by
labeling it communist and “un-American.” McCar-
thy’s witch hunts destroyed the careers of many
people whose only “crime” was supporting a larger
federal government and supporting a different for-
eign policy toward the Soviet Union. San Francisco’s
policy toward the NRA commits t he same sin.
This can only make our already toxic political
atmosphere worse. Liberal democracy rests on the
idea of the “loyal opposition.” I n modern democra-
cies, simply advocating a political position or a
change in government is not, as so o ften was t he case
in the past, an act of treason. The First Amendment
exists to provide citizens with a protected zone in
which they can engage in heated political disagree-
ment without fear o f government s uppression.
The San Francisco resolution essentially declares
that people who back the NRA cannot be a loyal
opposition. It then seeks to reduce NRA support by
saying the city should try to “limit those entities who
do business” with the city “from doing business with
this domestic terrorist organization.” That arguably
sets the power of a government against a set of
citizens solely on the basis of their politics. This is
called “viewpoint discrimination” i n First Amend-
ment law and i s unconstitutional.
The city’s rhetorical slander against millions of
Americans is just as harmful. We cannot have a free
republic if one large set of citizens views another large
set of citizens as evil and beyond the pale. President
Trump is regularly condemned for his harsh rhetoric
that some say stigmatizes Americans on the basis of
their race, gender or political beliefs. This resolution
trumps Trump.
Conservatives are often told t hey should denounce
Republicans such as Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) who
make outrageous and vile comments. The shoe is now
on the other foot. Democrats should immediately
denounce the San Francisco board for its insulting
and unconstitutional resolution. Failure to do so will
tell gun owners and anyone else who dissents from
the p rogressive agenda exactly where they stand.
Twitter: @henryolsenEPPCHENRY OLSENNo, San Francisco.
The NRA is not a
‘domestic terrorist
organization.’
C
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DRAWING BOARDBY DAVE GRANLUNDBY DANZIGER FOR THE RUTLAND HERALDBY R. MCKEE FOR COUNTERPOINTBY MATT DAVIES FOR NEWSDAYThis is McCarthyism,
pure and simple.