[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 99 (Monday, June 12, 2017)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E802]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 RECOGNIZING A LETTER TO THE EDITOR: HEY, WHITE HOUSE: LEAVE D.C. ALONE

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                           HON. JAMIE RASKIN

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, June 12, 2017

  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share an excellent Letter to 
the Editor, urging the Trump administration to respect the political 
autonomy of American citizens living in Washington, D.C., written by 
David Jonas Bardin to the Washington Post.
  In ``Hey, White House: Leave D.C. Alone,'' David writes:
  ``The May 28 editorial `More meddling' said that the White House has 
joined Congress ``in trying to block the District's Death with Dignity 
law.'' President Trump's proposed budget would unconstitutionally 
forbid implementation of that law in the 2018 fiscal year, which starts 
Oct. 1. The Constitution established federal legislative power over a 
future federal district as well as future federal installations outside 
the District of Columbia, such as Fort Bragg, N.C., to safeguard 
legitimate federal government interests there. The Bill of Rights 
immediately limited those powers in order to block tyranny.
  ``Even before statehood and even without D.C. voting rights in 
Congress, it is high time to recognize that Americans living in the 
District count as `the people' under the 10th Amendment, which says: 
`The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor 
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States 
respectively, or to the people.' Power to allow, forbid or regulate 
physician-assisted suicide was never delegated to the federal 
government.
  ``Mr. Trump should heed President William Henry Harrison's wise 
words: `The people of the District of Columbia are not the subjects of 
the people of the States, but free American citizens.' ''

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