Democrat Rep. Mondaire Jones (NY) claimed Republicans’ criticism of a bill that would grant statehood to Washington, DC, thereby giving Democrats two more Senate seats, is “racist trash.”
“I have had enough of my colleagues’ racist insinuations that somehow the people of Washington D.C. are incapable or even unworthy of our democracy,” Jones said during a speech on the House floor this week. “The truth is there is no good faith argument for disenfranchising 700,000 people, most of whom are people of color.”
One of my Republican colleagues objected to #DCStatehood because DC doesn’t have its own landfill.
With all the racist trash they’ve been espousing in this debate, it’s no wonder they’re worried about where to put it. https://t.co/8cYQlx4Bq1
— Mondaire Jones (@MondaireJones) April 22, 2021
Republicans immediately rebuked Jones.
Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., asked the chamber to strike Jones’s remarks from the congressional record, calling them “unbecoming of a representative.”
The accusation “violates the rules of the House,” Harris continued.
After some heated back and forth, Jones consented to withdraw his accusation from the record but continued to insist that Republicans’ objections to D.C. statehood are rooted in racist “fears.”
“Fear that in D.C. their white supremacist politics will no longer play,” he said during his speech. “Fear that soon enough, white supremacist politics won’t work anywhere in America. Fear that if they don’t rig our democracy, they won’t win.”
Several Republicans have voiced concerns about the D.C. statehood bill.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., argued it would prevent the nation’s capital from being a “well-rounded working-class state.”
And Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., pointed out that D.C. does not have the necessary infrastructure because it lacks “an airport, a car dealership, a capital city and a landfill.”
Democrats often tie their policies to alleged racism, as Jones did with D.C. statehood, in order to make black voters believe only the Democratic Party represents their interests, said North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson.
“The goal of some individuals in government is not to hear the voices of all black Americans, it is to hear the voices of those that fit their narrative, and ultimately that help keep one group in power,” he said in testimony before a House committee on Thursday.
