Political Quotes

“I urge all of my colleagues to reject this weak and unconstitutional motion to recommit. The motion proposes to condition the admission of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth on either the imposition of the whimsical policy preferences of the minority or simply banal restatements that the State will follow Federal law, which, obviously, it must do already under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. All of the States must. But the paradigm example here, and the thing that really appears to be really on their mind, and I am glad we at least have boiled it down to this issue, is they want to make sure that the new State doesn't come in without an amendment written by the people of Washington, D.C., saying that they will not charge people a fee for carrying a concealed weapon. Now, that is not in the U.S. Constitution, and it is not a matter of Federal law obligating the 50 States to do it, so you cannot selectively impose that on the new State of Washington, D.C. That is the equal footing doctrine, which the Supreme Court has emphasized repeatedly throughout our history, that every new State that we have granted admission to since the original 13, all 37 have entered on the exact same plane of political and constitutional equality as the original 13. So, they want to impose their various policy preferences on different things, like concealed carry weapons and so on.…”