WASHINGTON – The Senate approved a Republican-led effort to reinstate the District of Columbia’s controversial criminal code on Wednesday, sending it to the desk of President Joe Biden, who has said he wants to sign it back into law.
The vote was overwhelmingly to repeal the district’s felony law: thirty three Democrats join forces with every Republican.
Wednesday’s discussion of the resolution did not agree, authored by Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), it was the first time Congress directly overturned a Washington, DC, law in thirty. It’s also a stunning reversal for a Democratic Party that has repeatedly expressed support for DC statehood and home rule for the county’s more than 700,000 residents who lack electoral representation in Congress.
It’s not hard to see why Democrats rejected that principle, at least for a while. With the 2024 election looming and many Democratic incumbents facing tough re-election bids, Biden and other top party officials are choosing to close ranks and undermine their favorite Republican attack line — that Democrats are soft on crime — by rejecting new county laws that reduce maximum sentence. for crimes like carjacking.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s failure last month to advance to the top two spots in the city’s mayoral race, ensuring her defeat, may also have rattled the minds of Democrats and party strategists. Their decline is partly due to a rise in gun violence and other crimes in Chicago and other cities since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Biden isn’t right about crime either. His White House is reportedly considering whether to reincarcerate families of migrants who entered the U.S. illegally, a policy strongly criticized by Democrats. And his administration has announced changes to US asylum policy, to the ire of Democrats.
“The president is a better politician than we are and can see the handwriting on the wall without anyone telling him about it,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told HuffPost. “Members rising in 2024 may have concerns about voting for a bill that looks soft on crime and can be portrayed as such, regardless of the facts.”
“With the 2024 election looming and many Democratic officials facing tough re-election bids, Biden and other top party officials are choosing to close ranks and undermine their preferred Republican attack line — that Democrats are soft on crime.”
The revised criminal code of the District of Columbia will eliminate almost all mandatory minimum sentences, except for first-degree murder, and lower maximum punishment for some crimes to the level that lawyers say is in line with the sentences people actually receive in the city. For example, the maximum sentence for carjacking will drop from 40 years in prison under current law to 24 years under the new guidelines.
The amended code also raised penalties for several crimes, including attempted murder, attempted sexual assault, possession of an assault weapon, and assaulting a police officer.
But Republicans say the DC Council will invite another wave of crime in the nation’s capital, warning that the city’s changes will put residents at risk, as well as the millions of tourists who visit Washington, DC, each year.
“This is why our legislation gives us the final say in how our nation’s capital is organized,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday. “Because we cannot have the madness and dysfunction of some local politicians endangering public safety in the federal district that houses the national government.”
The DC Council passed changes to the city’s criminal code – which had not been updated in a century – in a unanimous vote last year. It also includes a long overdue non-controversial change. DC Mayor Muriel Bowser vetoed the measure, citing safety concerns, but the council overruled her.
Fourteen Senate Democrats defeated Biden and his leadership in the Senate by voting against the GOP’s resolution of dissent on Wednesday, including Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.), Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md. ), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Sen. Chris Murphy (Conn.). Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) voted “now.”
“We need to support the autonomy of DC citizens,” Warren said, calling the measure “just a way to show who has the power here and Congress can avoid” DC citizens.
Van Hollen, who represents neighboring Maryland, noted the new carjacking penalties in DC are in line with penalties in other states.
“I’m looking at what other state laws are for armed carjacking,” Van Hollen said. “In most cases, it is lower than the new DC penalty. Many states do not have armed carjacking statutes. Fifteen states have a lower penalty than the lower DC maximum penalty.
Booker, meanwhile, dismissed opponents of DC’s crime code revisions as engaging in “scare tactics where actions are taken as a way to win political points.”
The White House’s handling of the matter has also drawn criticism from Democrats. The White House Office of Management and Budget initially objected to the district’s autonomy from Congress when it expressed opposition to the GOP override last month before the House took steps to vote on it.
As a result, 173 House Democrats voted against the resolution of dissent.
“This taxation without representation and denial of self-government is an affront to the democratic values on which our Nation was founded,” the White House Office of Management and Budget wrote in a Feb. 6 administration policy statement. Biden reversed that position a month later, when he announced he would not oppose the effort during a closed-door meeting with Senate Democrats.
Joe Calvello, a spokesman for Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who missed the vote because he was being treated for depression, chided the White House and others in a statement to HuffPost.
“See this has been mishandled at every turn – from the White House covering House Dems with bait and switch, to the DC Council trying some last minute hijinks to pump [brakes] about everything,” Calvello wrote. “And if Republicans are finally ready to deal with crime instead of blowing hot air, then John is ready to work with them. John supports DC statehood and self-government. If he were here, he would vote accordingly.
DC state advocates say the city’s 700,000 minority-majority residents should be allowed to determine their own laws and be represented in Congress like every other community in the state.
“President Biden gave us this beauty speech in September about our democracy and [the] the future of our democracy, but they do not listen to their own words,” said Patrice Snow, spokesperson for the advocacy organization DC Vote. “We must be able – as the majority of black and brown cities, to determine our own destiny, good or bad. Very paternalistic.
However, Snow said there was a silver lining in Wednesday’s defeat at the hands of Congress: D.C. state supporters “will be able to teach people outside the District that 700,000 D.C. residents don’t have a voter representative in Congress.”