Democratic California Rep. Robert Garcia suggested on Wednesday night that a Democrat-supported government shutdown should be “on the table” until President Donald Trump removes troops from Washington, D.C.
Garcia, whom his colleagues chose in June to be the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, was asked on MSNBC if Senate Democrats should withhold their votes to fund the government by the looming Sept. 30 deadline — thus risking a shutdown — in response to Trump’s D.C. crime crackdown. “Should they refuse to vote on the spending bill, using that leverage until they see President Trump reverse deploying troops in the streets of D.C.?” the host asked Garcia.
“Yes. First, that should be on the table. I don’t think we should be ruling that out,” Garcia said. “I think that Democrats in the Senate, the House, every, all of us, should be united in using everything that we can do in all our power to stop what Trump is doing right now, not just in D.C., but across the country.”
“So absolutely, that should be on the table,” the House lawmaker emphasized.
Garcia, along with Democratic Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin and and DC’s non-voting House delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, introduced a joint resolution on Aug. 15 to terminate Trump’s emergency powers to take control over D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). The resolution claims the special conditions allowing the president to temporarily take over the D.C. police department for “federal purposes” have not been met, allowing Congress to end the emergency control.
“President Trump’s incursions against DC are among the most egregious attacks on DC home rule in decades,” Norton said at the time. “DC residents are Americans, worthy of the same autonomy granted to residents of the states … No emergency exists in DC that the president did not create himself, and he is not using the DC Police for federal purposes, as required by law.”
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