[Congressional interference in local affairs is not about an
earnest desire to improve public safety or democracy in D.C. It’s
political theater: hyperpartisan combatants in our divisive, national
discourse seeking to score points for their next hometown election
cycle.]
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SENATE GOP OFFERS D.C. ‘ADULT SUPERVISION,’ PUSHES TO OVERTURN
CRIMINAL CODE BILL  
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Martin Austermuhle
February 16, 2023
DCist
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_ Congressional interference in local affairs is not about an earnest
desire to improve public safety or democracy in D.C. It’s political
theater: hyperpartisan combatants in our divisive, national discourse
seeking to score points for their next hometown election cycle. _

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is pushing a measure to block
a D.C. bill that overhauls the city’s criminal code., Gage Skidmore
/ Flickr

 

Senate Republicans are mounting a full offensive against a bill passed
by the D.C. Council overhauling the city’s criminal code
[[link removed]],
pushing to follow the Republican-led House of Representatives’ move
last week to block the bill from taking effect
[[link removed]].

Speaking on the floor of the Senate this morning, Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell said D.C.’s “radical local government” has
failed to control crime in the city. McConnell cited the attack last
week on Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minnesota), who was assaulted in the
elevator of her H Street NE building
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“The D.C. Council has responded to the crime wave, listen to this,
with a new bill to make the city even softer on crime. It lowers
maximum penalties for violent crimes and creates new ways to shorten
the sentences of incarcerated felons. Well, the good news is the
Constitution actually gives the Congress final say over issues in our
nation’s capital,” he said.

“When the soft-on-crime local government has become this completely
incompetent, when members of Congress cannot go about their daily
lives without being attacked and families cannot come visit our
Capitol in safety, then it’s about time our federal government
provides some adult supervision,” he added.

That supervision, said McConnell, would come in the form of a
disapproval resolution of the sweeping bill passed by the council last
year that modernizes and updates the city’s century-old criminal
code, which prosecutors and defense attorneys alike say is outdated,
inconsistent, and difficult to work with. The House passed its own
disapproval resolution last week, and Sen. Bill Haggerty (R-Tennessee)
has introduced a companion measure
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the Senate. Should both pass and be signed into law, the bill would be
overturned.

According to Haggerty’s office, the disapproval resolution could be
debated and voted on in the Senate by early March. The measure would
take only a simple majority to pass, and with Democrats holding a mere
two-vote majority, there are concerns that some will vote with
Republicans
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In the House, 31 Democrats joined Republicans in supporting the
disapproval resolution. The White House says it opposes the
disapproval resolution, but has not said whether it would veto it
should it pass the Senate. (The last successful disapproval resolution
passed in 1991.)

“Congress shouldn’t be bigfooting decisions made by the elected
representatives of the people of the District. I will be talking with
[Democrats] about this general principle,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen
(D-Md.) told Politico this week
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Speaking last week, House Democrats defended the city’s ability to
make its own decisions, and pointed out that some of the provisions in
the revised criminal code would impose harsher penalties for some
crimes than in places like Kentucky, which is represented by
McConnell. Additionally, they argued that Republicans would be
apoplectic if Congress tried to interfere in local affairs in GOP-led
states.

But it’s not just on Capitol Hill where the drama around the bill
has mounted. While it passed with unanimous support in the council,
Mayor Muriel Bowser vetoed the bill
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saying that provisions reducing some maximum penalties for certain
offenses
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“send the wrong message.” Lawmakers voted to override her veto
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decrying what they called “fear-mongering” around the changes to
the criminal code. Bowser has since introduced her own bill proposing
some penalty increases
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but has shown less vigor than some have hoped for
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pushing back on a possible congressional disapproval.

Other officials, though, have more aggressively defended the
council’s bill and fought the Republican-led attempts to block it.

“Politicians from other states don’t know more or care more about
how to make D.C. safer than the nearly 700,000 people who live here
and whose democratically elected officials worked closely with local
law enforcement, national legal experts and community members for more
than a decade to streamline and clarify our archaic, confusing
criminal laws,” wrote D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb this week
in an op-ed in The Washington Post
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“Let’s be honest. Congressional interference in local affairs is
not about an earnest desire to improve public safety or democracy in
D.C. It’s political theater: hyperpartisan combatants in our
divisive, national discourse seeking to score points for their next
hometown election cycle,” he added.

The political theater has been on full display in recent weeks, with
Republican leaders and conservative media taking full aim at the
revised criminal code bill and another measure that would allow
non-citizens to vote in local elections starting in 2024. (That bill
was also disapproved by the House, but is on a slower track in the
Senate.) This week, the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal
hailed Congress’s move to overrule what it called the “District of
Crazy
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Crime in D.C. has often spurred Congress to intervene in local
affairs, so much so that in the early 1990s federal lawmakers ordered
the city to hold a referendum on whether to reinstate the death
penalty after a congressional aide was killed in the city. (D.C.
voters rejected it.) Members of Congress also pushed the council to
pass its own bills ramping up penalties from certain crimes; critics
now say it was those bills that helped fuel mass incarceration of
Black men.

Some D.C. lawmakers point out that despite McConnell’s claims about
the revised criminal code, it does not go into effect until Oct. 2025
— meaning any crimes committed until then will be prosecuted under
the existing code and be punished with existing harsh penalties.
Additionally, while homicides and carjackings are up from last year,
overall violent crime is down 19% compared to the same time last year
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and has generally trended downwards in recent years. Speaking last
month at a summit on public safety
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D.C. Police Chief Robert J. Contee III noted that a disconnect exists
between the number of violent crimes and how people generally feel
about public safety.

Speaking earlier this month, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson
raised another concern: if Congress does overturn the bill revising
the criminal code, it will leave D.C. with an existing code that most
agree is outdated and ineffective.

“Don’t override the legislation,” he said. “If you do,
you’re setting back the District… you’re putting back in place
an outdated and archaic criminal code that’s considered the worst in
the country.”

_Martin Austermuhle is a reporter in WAMU/DCist’s newsroom. He
covers politics, development, education, social issues, and crime,
among other things. Austermuhle joined the WAMU staff in April 2013 as
a web producer and reporter. Prior to that, he served as
editor-in-chief for DCist.com. He has written for the Washington City
Paper, Washington Diplomat and other publications._

_DCist is the unofficial homepage of the District. We cover what
matters to Washingtonians, whether that’s the latest piece of
legislation before the D.C. Council or the best thing to order at the
new restaurant around the corner.  DCist is supported by a community
of members … readers just like you. So if you love the local news
and stories you find here, don’t let it disappear!_

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