The D.C. Council may soon find itself in a turf war with congressional Republicans over a growing push for Congress to intervene in its affairs.
House and Senate Republicans are preparing efforts to block a controversial crime bill that the D.C. Council passed last week over the objections of the city’s mayor and police chief.
Council members voted to override Mayor Muriel Bowser’s (D) veto of the bill almost unanimously, with only one of the council’s 13 members opposing it. The new measure would, among other things, eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for virtually every crime and weaken punishments for carjacking and robberies.
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House Republicans have previously toyed with the prospect of stepping up Congress’s role in running the district.
Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) pushed last year to repeal the D.C. Home Rule Act of 1973, which allowed the city to elect its own leaders and operate independently.
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) sponsored a bill in 2019, the Home Rule Improvement Act, that would give Congress a 60-day window to review the city’s new laws before they take effect.
And Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) fought in 2014 to include language in the federal budget that barred the district from spending taxpayer money to implement a marijuana legalization law the council had passed.
But the idea of encroaching on Washington’s home rule as aggressively as the repeal of hard-fought criminal justice reforms has recently drawn interest not just from conservative House circles but from Senate GOP leadership.
“The D.C. [Council] is so completely captured by the woke far Left, they have responded to the crime wave with a new criminal code that — listen to this — reduces penalties even further,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said on the Senate floor Wednesday.
“Well, the good news on this front is that the United States Congress gets to have the final word over reckless local policies from the D.C. government,” McConnell said. “Senate Republicans will have a lot more to say on this subject. Stay tuned.”
The nation’s capital has indeed struggled with a crime wave since 2020, with carjackings increasing sharply since the pandemic.
As of Thursday, the city had recorded 41 carjackings in the 26 days of the year so far. Only three carjacking arrests were made over that time, according to the Metropolitan Police Department.
Congress can weigh in on Washington’s decisions because the Constitution grants the House and Senate full authority over the federal district “in all cases whatsoever.”
While the district has more or less ruled itself for 50 years, Congress has threatened to step in when the city has hit hard times.
In the mid-1990s, conservatives in Congress pushed to take over some of the functions that had been left to city government after the corruption and financial problems of the Washington bureaucracy under Mayor Marion Barry (D) left Washington struggling.
A massive budget shortfall in 1995 prompted Congress to establish a panel that took over responsibility for Washington’s finances. The District of Columbia Financial Control Board helped clean up the city’s books and disbanded in 2001.
Congress also intervened to stop a controversial law from taking effect in 1992. Lawmakers blocked the Health Care Benefits Expansion Act of 1992 after the council passed the measure, which extended healthcare benefits to unmarried couples and same-sex partnerships.
But a move now to overhaul the Washington crime law would represent a significant effort by House and Senate Republicans.
Crime featured prominently in the GOP’s messaging during the midterm elections, and Republicans have taken particular aim at the efforts of liberal city leaders to reduce penalties for offenders.
Supporters of the new crime law say a rewrite of the district’s criminal code was sorely needed after decades of discrimination.
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Both chambers of Congress must approve an effort to repeal one of Washington’s laws, meaning the push to strike down the criminal justice reform could be an uphill battle.
But House Republicans are likely to support repealing it if Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) prioritizes it, and McConnell could force a vote in the Senate that would place Democrats, who hold a narrow majority, in a difficult position.
Centrist Democrats have often chosen criticism of the “defund the police” movement and other liberal criminal justice reforms as an easy way to demonstrate their independence from the far-left wing of their party. Some facing uphill reelection battles may find it difficult to stick with fellow Democrats in supporting a law that will put more offenders back on the streets.
