DC braces for ‘robust oversight’ after criminal code flap
President Joe Biden’s signature on a bill nullifying an overhaul of the District of Columbia criminal code ended a public fight between Congress and local lawmakers. But the battles are only just beginning.
Already House Republicans are pledging to increase congressional intervention in local D.C. affairs. House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., has pledged that his committee “stands ready to conduct robust oversight of America’s capital city.”
D.C. Council members sound like they fully believe those promises.
“I’m afraid that we’re going to see more of this for the remainder of this Congress,” D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson said earlier this month in advance of a Senate vote to overrule the city government and block the District’s new crime laws.
“Does this raise a concern that there are going to be other issues? Yes.”
The criminal code saga has left District lawmakers bitterly nursing their political wounds, harboring fresh resentments against national Democrats, some of whom supported the criminal code nullification, and bracing to play defense against the activist Republican-controlled House for at least the next two years.
And that robust oversight has already begun. Even before Biden signed the crime
bill override on Monday, the House Oversight Committee sent letters summoning Mendelson, D.C. Councilmember Charles Allen and D.C. Chief Financial Officer Glen Lee to testify at a March 29 hearing. The topic of that hearing, according to the letter, is the vague “general oversight of the District of Columbia, including crime, safety, and city management.”
Other House Republicans have already identified areas of interest to target. Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia has introduced a resolution to block a separate D.C. law — a police accountability measure known as the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act.
Most aspects of that law were passed by the D.C. Council on an emergency basis in 2020, amid the protests against police brutality following George Floyd’s killing by police; it was made permanent in December 2022. It bans the use of chokeholds by police officers, makes police disciplinary files more available to the public, weakens the bargaining power of the police union and limits the use of tear gas to disperse protestors.
“Now that Congress has effectively used its constitutional authority to strike down the D.C. Council’s dangerous Revised Criminal Code Act, we must now move to swiftly block this anti-police measure to ensure our nation’s capital city is safe for all Americans,” Clyde said in a statement.
Under terms of Washington’s Home Rule authority, t he House Committee on Oversight and Accountability essentially vets all new D.C. laws and frequently alters or limits them through budget riders. But the criminal code rewrite is the first law to be completely overturned since 1991.
Clyde, a longtime nemesis of D.C. loyalists, has publicly stated that his ultimate goal is to completely end Washington’s Home Rule authority. That sentiment, once a long-shot fringe position, has edged closer to being a mainstream Republican talking point. Former President Donald Trump said earlier this month that the “federal government should take over control and management of Washington D.C.”