House Democrats proved that they can’t think for themselves on crime
Zachary Faria
Video Embed
The GOP-led push to overturn Washington’s criminal code reforms highlighted one very important dynamic in Congress: House Democrats are lemmings, apparently incapable of thinking for themselves.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was the latest Democratic senator to announce, after it ceased to matter, that he would support overturning the new soft-on-crime law. The district’s law is a criminal’s dream, softening the already-soft punishments in the area for carjacking, robbery, and homicide amid a massive crime wave. Senate Democrats have flocked to the Republicans’ side in their push to block these favors for violent criminals. But they did so only after President Joe Biden had already changed his mind and announced he would not veto the measure.
HOUSE GOP REVELS IN BIDEN’S DC CRIME BILL FLIP-FLOP THAT INFURIATED DEMOCRATS
Biden originally said he would block Congress with his veto from stopping the district crime bill. He waited until after the House had voted to announce his change of heart on the veto. Only 31 House Democrats broke ranks to back the Republican effort after Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN) was attacked in her apartment complex. Then, after Biden announced that he would support the bill after all, some House Democrats on the opposite side of the vote anonymously took to the media to complain that Biden left them out to dry.
“People are rip-roarin’ pissed,” one House Democrat said, adding that Biden “is going to have a much harder time asking people to take tough votes after this.” A senior Democratic aide said that “I think everyone is in the camp of, ‘If you were going to do this, why not say before the vote to give us cover?'” A Democratic chief of staff said that it was a “complete unforced error.”
That anonymous complaint is more accurate than that staffer could realize. If the House Democrats who anonymously trashed Biden had a mind of their own, they could have simply voted on the merits of the bill itself. Their constituents did not send them to Congress to do what they think Biden wants. Yet, evidently, that is precisely what some of them think their job is.
Those House Democrats who would have flip-flopped on the bill are now the biggest losers in Washington. They opened themselves up to completely justified campaign ads attacking them for being soft on crime. And they did it not because they believed in it, but because Biden gave them marching orders and they did what they were told to do.
They showed that they can’t think for themselves and only do whatever the most powerful Democrat tells them to do. It is something that voters should remember the next time a “centrist” House Democrat talks about being independent of his or her party’s leadership.