RUTHFULLY YOURS

This latest ugly Beltway argument began after Rep. Elijah Cummings (D., Md.), who has represented part of Baltimore for 22 years in the House, berated the acting head of the Department of Homeland Security for the condition of illegal immigrants detained by the Border Patrol. In a series of tweets last week, Mr. Trump compared U.S. border facilities favorably with Mr. Cummings’ congressional district, which the President called “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.” Mr. Trump added that if Rep. Cummings “spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous & filthy place.”

It certainly is dangerous. Mr. Cummings’ ideological allies at New York University’s Brennan Center recently issued a report on violent crime last year in the nation’s 30 largest cities. Citing data from the Baltimore Police Department, the liberal Brennan crew reports that Baltimore has by far the highest murder rate of any of the 26 big cities for which 2018 data are available. Despite a decline in murders since Baltimore’s horrific 2017, Brennan reports that Baltimore’s 50.7 murders per 100,000 people add up to more than ten times the rate in New York City or San Diego.

The Brennan report makes the understatement of the year in calling Baltimore a “city that continues to struggle with violence.” And President Trump isn’t the only person who has noticed this tragic situation. Some people have been raising the alarm for years.

For example, a Member of Congress named Elijah Cummings said at a House subcommittee hearing in June of 1999: “I live in a drug-infested neighborhood. I know people who have been trying to get treatment for years.” Rep. Cummings elaborated on the horrific conditions in Baltimore:

I’ve known… little girls who I’ve watched grow up from babies and they’re selling their bodies for $5, at 14 years old. I see them everyday. I know the pain of coming home and seeing my home ransacked. My car broken into. Because people are in so much pain they don’t even know they’re in pain…

Three years later, a brave Baltimore woman named Angela Dawson was murdered along with her husband and five children after she sought police help to get drug dealers out of her neighborhood. Rep. Cummings took to the House floor to announce:

More will be done; more must be done to protect families living in communities of fear. Drug gangs cannot be allowed to rule our court system through intimidation. Children should not fear stray bullets as they sit in front of their homes. Families await a day when they can sleep soundly knowing that the drug gangs are no longer lurking within their community. Baltimore City’s fight against these drug gangs is not a war America can afford to ignore; and retreat is not an option.

Thirteen years later, Juliet Linderman of the Associated Press reported:

Baltimore police and civic leaders launched a partnership Monday with five federal agencies that will embed their special agents with city homicide detectives, bidding to quell an upswing in homicides and other violent crime in that city…

U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, in his remarks Monday, appealed to those considering committing acts of violence in Baltimore. He pleaded with them to put down their guns and “allow people to live.”

“The only people making good now are the morticians,” the Maryland Democrat said.

One can debate federal policies on crime, drugs and poverty. But whatever one’s views on such questions, there’s the remaining question of why Baltimore is so much worse than so many other cities living under the same federal policies.

As a member of the U.S. House, Rep. Cummings could perhaps say that local governance is not in his purview. But his allies in the Democratic party have been running the city longer than he’s been in Congress. In the last decade two of Baltimore’s mayors resigned amid corruption scandals—both had previously been endorsed by Rep. Cummings. Rep. Cummings also served 14 years in the Maryland House before representing Baltimore in Washington. Democratic party dominance in his city predates his entry into politics, and the city’s struggle with violence has been a long one.

In 1971, then-Mayor Thomas D’Alesandro, whose sister is now the Speaker of the U.S. House, announced that he would not run for re-election. Two months later the Baltimore Sun reported the results of a police investigation which confirmed that the city had been underreporting certain categories of crime.

Of course today there’s no argument about Baltimore being a violent place with failed governance—except when Donald Trump says so. Perhaps the city’s voters will now reflect on the policies that have resulted from one-party rule. After all, what do they have to lose?

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