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As a follow-up to our earlier post detailing some of the divisions that have emerged within the D.C. voting rights movement over the gun amendment, we just received a statement from D.C. for Democracy formally announcing that the organization is opposed to passing the legislation with the amendment attached.

“The way the deal has been structured, the District would at long last achieve the goal Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton and others have fought so hard for — a full vote for D.C. in the House of Representatives — but at an unacceptably high cost to local democracy,” said the organization’s chair, Jerry Clark. D.C. for Democracy has been a member of the coalition that advocated for the legislation, which would grant the District a voting seat in the House. “In our view, adopting the [gun] amendment not only does not improve the Home Rule Charter but, in fact, wholly undermines it, now and for the foreseeable future,” the statement adds.

DCist was also today reminded that emergency legislation unanimously passed by the D.C. Council in March 2009 formally expresses the legislative body’s opposition to any such gun amendment. After detailing any number of regulations that the current amendment would overturn, the legislation simply declares, “It is the sense of the Council of the District of Columbia that the United States Congress must not adopt any amendment to the District of Columbia Voting Rights Act that restricts the District government’s ability to legislate the regulation of firearms, or that repeals D.C. Act 17-708, the Firearms Registration Amendment Act of 2008.”

So far, only council members Kwame Brown (D-At Large) and Yvette Alexander (D-Ward 7) have since flip-flopped and come out in favor of passing the legislation with the amendment. Brown, who is running for council chair, may have the most to answer for, especially since he was particularly vocal last year in opposing any intrusion into local affairs.