Republicans are looking to expand the federal government’s power over the nation’s capital city — and use the District of Columbia as a testing ground for tough-on-crime policies the GOP could seek to implement around the country.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee advanced about a dozen bills Wednesday designed to chip away at Washington’s autonomy, including its ability to control its own law enforcement activities.
The more than 10-hour markup of the measures, which Democrats nearly uniformly opposed, came the same day President Donald Trump’s 30-day emergency order assuming control of the city’s police department was due to expire.
“This is an assault on the self-determination of the residents of Washington, D.C., and they deserve better than this,” said Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.). “It is one thing to have the burden of living here without active representation. It is quite another to have Congress intervene on the basic functions of daily life that the people of D.C. endure.”
The bills on the committee agenda Wednesday would, among other things, expand the universe of city laws Congress can formally veto; allow Washington’s locally elected attorney general to be replaced with an official selected by the president; and invalidate legislation passed by the Council of the District of Columbia.
In an apparent response to the Trump administration’s desire to combat Washington’s leniency for younger offenders, one bill would limit individuals who qualify as “youth” to those 18 years old or younger. Another measure would allow those 14 years of age and older to be tried as adults for certain offenses.
“You are living in a city filled with crime,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to her colleagues. “And we have witnessed it as members of Congress.”
House GOP leadership plans to bring at least some of the bills for a vote on the floor in the coming weeks, but it’s unlikely that any of them will become law: Even if passed by the House, each measure would face an uphill battle in the Senate to gain the necessary Democratic support to overcome a filibuster.
Still, any further action on the bills would likely further inflame the ongoing partisan clash around Washington’s right to self-governance. This tension is also likely to be on display next week when a trio of top Washington elected officials — Mayor Muriel Bowser, Council Chair Phil Mendelson and Attorney General Brian Schwalb…
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