Could there be a looming constitutional crisis on the horizon between the U.S. House of Representatives and the White House over a move to reduce criminal penalties by the local D.C. city government?
The District of Columbia, commonly known as Washington, DC, operates as a federal district. As such, constitutionally, the House of Representatives is actually the reigning authority in the city, not the mayor or the elected members of the city council. Those local bodies generally write the laws and regulations but they do so with the consent of Congress.
In recent years, basically stemming from the Black Lives Matter riots in 2020, the city has gone downhill exponentially fast. Areas around the monuments are generally safe since they’re protected as a national park.
Off the beaten path, however, the city is degrading rapidly as many businesses remain closed because federal workers have enjoyed overly generous telework rules leaving the heart of the city mostly deserted.
Places like McPherson Square, one of the city’s many historical parks, have now become literal homeless tent cities filled with drug use and rampant crime. In short, some parts of the city, including the once-great Union Station rail hub have become quasi “no-go” zones for tourists or anyone not forced to commute through the area. Things have gotten so bad in some parts that Starbucks has abandoned some of the city’s most high-profile real estate due to rampant crime and safety concerns.
The National Park Service plans to clear a homeless encampment on federal land in McPherson Square on Feb. 15, two months ahead of schedule. Advocates have expressed their outrage at the decision https://t.co/8XyAjDR8zu pic.twitter.com/0KsJ6KP5sW
— DCist (@DCist) January 31, 2023
Enter the D.C. City Council to solve the problem by…. passing a resolution to reduce criminal penalties and remove mandatory minimum sentences. The resolution was so bad that Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, vetoed it but the city council overrode her authority:
The District of Columbia City Council voted to force through revisions of the district’s criminal code that will soften penalties on violent crimes, overriding a previous veto from the mayor’s office.
Mayor Muriel Bowser vetoed the Revised Criminal Code Act earlier this month after the council, which lacks a single Republican member, voted unanimously to adopt it in November.
Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto, who voted to overturn the veto, argued Tuesday that “allowing the veto to stand would be a significant step back in our work to modernize the criminal code, negating years of work, compromise and engagement by the council.”
The overhaul of the city’s criminal code includes reduced maximum sentences, the elimination of nearly all mandatory minimum sentences, and expanded rights to jury trials by those accused of misdemeanors.
Remember when Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in her State of the Union response that the choice in politics today is between “normal” or “crazy”? This is the crazy she’s referring to along with all the other left-wing insanity being forced upon citizens by governments at all levels today.
Crime is skyrocketing in D.C., a tourist destination visited not only by Americans looking to learn about our history and petition our government, but it’s an international destination as well. As it stands now, the city itself, by its own governing, is trying to destroy its tourism industry and make the city more dangerous for residents.
The mayor didn’t support the softening of criminal penalties and neither did city residents nor city ward leaders. That didn’t stop the council from moving forward.
Enter the new Republican Congress which now has authority over the District and its affairs. In a truly bi-partisan vote, the GOP-controlled House passed a resolution that would override the city council’s new soft-on-crime stance, a move that even received almost two dozen House Democratic votes as well:
After months of contention which began shortly after the midterm elections, the House, led by the Republican majority, voted Thursday to prevent a pair of local Washington, D.C., bills from going into effect.
One of the bills would allow non-U.S. citizens to vote in local elections. The other, more controversial bill would update Washington’s criminal code for the first time since 1901.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy urged all of his colleagues to approve resolutions disapproving of the two measures.
“Under the Constitution, Congress — not the city council — has the final say over the laws governing the nation’s capital,” McCarthy said in remarks on the floor. “We have a responsibility to hold Washington, D.C., accountable and stop the new criminal code from taking effect.”
Despite the fact that the D.C. Mayor originally vetoed the bill for its insanity, Rep. Alexandria Ocaiso-Cortez called the bi-partisan move “racist” because, well, everything is racist or something. AOC claimed that House has no business regulating the affairs of the federal district it’s constitutionally in charge of. Then again, she is a noted moron so who cares?
With the resolution overturning the insane D.C. crime bill now past the House, the Senate looks poised to sign on as well, likely with broad bipartisan support.
The Biden administration, on the other hand, stands with the crazy and has stopped short of saying the President would veto the bill reversing the D.C. crime bill but that’s basically what they’re alluding to:
The Biden administration said in a statement Monday that the White House opposed both resolutions, describing them as “clear examples of how the District of Columbia continues to be denied true self-governance and why it deserves statehood.”
“That gives me some hope that this will not pass and this will not become law,” Norton said.
However, the administration’s statement did not explicitly say whether Biden would veto the resolutions if they came to his desk.
What happened to Joe Biden the Unifier in Chief? Here’s a bipartisan piece of legislation supported by both parties in Congress and Biden’s threatening to veto it with virtual signaling about D.C. statehood.
The District of Columbia needs to be a safe place to visit and a safe place to conduct the nation’s business. Under one-party Democratic rule, the city has been run into the ground like other major Democrat-run urban areas. Instead of working to improve conditions, the city council has signed on to crazy and wants to protect criminals, encourage crime, and put more residents, commuters, and tourists at risk.
Need another example? One of the House Democrats who voted in favor of the resolution overturning the D.C. council’s madness, Rep. Angie Craig, from Minnesota, was assaulted this week in her apartment building:
Police announced that a suspect has been arrested in connection with an assault Thursday morning on Rep. Angie Craig, a Democrat from Minnesota, in the elevator of her Washington, D.C., apartment building. Craig suffered bruising in the attack, her office said.
The DC Metropolitan Police Department reported Thursday night that 26-year-old Kendrick Hamlin was arrested on a charge of simple assault. Police did not immediately disclose how Hamlin was identified and taken into custody.
Unsurprisingly, Craig voted with Republicans in the House to reverse course in weakening D.C.’s criminal code. Shocking, huh?
There are a couple of possible outcomes here. If the Senate passes the resolution with the House, Biden could simply sign it and move on.
If Biden vetoes it, then it might be up to the Senate to override the veto, which might conceivably happen.
On the other hand, some House members have said they’ll take the issue to the legal system on constitutional grounds claiming it’s the House of Representatives alone that has authority over the District, not the executive branch or even the Senate.
It’s a story worth watching as it develops further.
Does Biden stand with normal or crazy? We already know the answer to that.
