You know progressives are overstepping their bounds when more than a dozen of their fellow Democrats vote with Republicans rather than support their agenda.
On Wednesday, 14 Democrats in the House voted with their Republican colleagues to overturn a Washington, D.C. police reform bill that could put police in danger or lead to their further harassment.
The Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Emergency Amendment Act, passed soon after George Floyd's death in police custody sparked outrage and national protests, includes provisions that ban all chokeholds, require public release of bodycam footage following violent incidents, and make police officers' disciplinary records public in at least some instances.
In addition, the law makes police access to riot gear and tear gas more difficult, which could lead to even more violence if there is no means available to stop it.
Since the law was passed, about a third of Washington, D.C.'s police force has left and 40% of those resigned voluntarily, Fox News reported.
"Officers are expressing their great concern with their feet and are leaving faster than they can be replaced. The DC police force has been depleted to an astonishing half-century low," resolution sponsor Rep. Andrew Clyde, (R-GA) said.
Crime in D.C. has risen dramatically as the police department has not been able to replace the officers as quickly as they have resigned, and as criminals become emboldened by the additional restrictions on police.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser refused to sign the law, but it was adopted anyway.
So-called police reform laws were put in place in many of the more liberal areas after Floyd's death, but they have not worked out the way reformers planned.
It's a great idea to make rules that prevent police from abusing their power, but these laws prevent them from doing their jobs at all in many cases, which sends a signal to criminals that they can abuse the system instead.
It's the third law passed by an extreme left Washington, D.C. city council that has been voted down by Congress, which is given constitutional oversight over the laws of the nation's capital.
First of all, the capital is not part of a state, just the District of Columbia, so it is missing those protections that a locality would have as part of a state. And secondly, the nation's lawmakers along with the executive and judicial branches all have to live under the laws of Washington, D.C. at least some of the time and deserve to have some say in them.
While the extreme far-lefties want to hurl "racism" accusations against lawmakers for voting down the terrible laws, it makes total sense that they would not want to see the city descend further into chaos.
What doesn't make sense is how most Democrats just can't see that they've gone off the rails on this issue and are now putting society at risk because they want to swing the pendulum so far in the other direction that it endangers us all.
