Congress came together in a rare show of bipartisanship this week. What brought the opposing sides together? Well, it wasn’t figuring out the debt ceiling or the war in Ukraine, it was voting down Washington, DC’s proposed new criminal code.
The new code had been in the works for over a decade and would have been the first overhaul of the District’s criminal statutes since 1901. Many of the changes were uncontroversial, but federal lawmakers couldn’t get behind the update’s lower maximum penalties for some violent crimes.
Advocates said those changes simply would have brought the code into alignment with the penalties judges actually dispense. But that argument wasn’t persuasive to Republicans — and many Democrats — in Congress, where the proposal was excoriated as being “soft on crime.” DC’s mayor and police chief had also objected to aspects of the update for similar reasons.
Republicans in Congress rag on big-city mayors all the time, but they don’t have the ability to step in and change local laws — except in DC. Though the capital city has had “home rule” since the 1970s, by law, every bill passed by DC’s city council goes to Congress for a review.
Then the president has the final say; they can block Congress from disapproving of District legislation. In the past, President Joe Biden has been a vocal supporter of DC autonomy. But not this time.
“I support DC Statehood and home-rule — but I don’t support some of the changes DC Council put forward over the Mayor’s objections — such as lowering penalties for carjackings,” the President tweeted.
The saga has been a brutal setback for advocates of increased DC autonomy, said Martin Austermuhle, a reporter at WAMU in the District who has for years covered the proposed criminal code update.
“There’s usually a lot of noise from Republicans on the Hill where they dislike things that DC is doing, which is often because this is a Democratic city,” Austermuhle…
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