By: Miriam Edelman
For the second time in two years, Congress attacked D.C. about police/crime during National Police Week. During National Police Week (May 12-18, 2024), the House passed H.R. 7530, the “D. C. Criminal Reforms to Immediately Make Everyone Safe Act of 2024.” (DC CRIMES Act). This bill would micromanage how D.C. handles crime and would damage D.C. home rule. See DCNOW’s blog’s “Congress Continues to Interfere with the Nation’s Capital Through New Anti-D.C. Bills” and the “Second D.C.-Related Mark-Up in As Many Months for the U.S. House Oversight and Accountability Committee (March 7, 2024, Mark-Up) (Part One – H.R.7530).”
During 2023’s National Police Week (May 14-20, 2023), the U.S. Senate passed H.J. Res. 42, which would have prevented D.C.’s policing bill from becoming law. This vote took place after Congress’s review period had ended on May 8th (These actions were the subject of the “D.C.’s Policing Bill Becomes Law After a Veto by President Joe Biden” piece of DCNOW’s blog). President Joe Biden vetoed that bill.
On May 14, 2024, D.C.’s Mayor Muriel Bowser, D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson, and D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb sent a letter to Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) opposing H.R. 7530. They wrote that that bill “would actually prevent the District government from taking steps to address dynamic crime trends.” and:
In recent months, the Mayor and the Council have put into place several pieces of public safety legislation that included more than 100 new initiatives that have, among other things, expanded pretrial detention for violent offenders and enhanced penalties for certain gun crimes. Violent crime has decreased by 25 percent and property crime has decreased by 14 percent when compared to the same period last year. The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) is making more arrests and the Office of the Attorney General is prosecuting cases at a rate almost double the prepandemic rates. And just this week, the Council is continuing its work on a Fiscal Year 2025 budget proposed by the Mayor that will make further strategic investments in MPD and crime prevention efforts.
They also remarked:
If H.R. 7530 were law today, it would block us from taking some of these steps. By prohibiting the Council from enacting “any act, resolution, or rule to change any criminal liability sentence,” the bill would prevent District policymakers from responding to emerging crime trends by enhancing criminal penalties, or even create new crimes. Swift and certain consequences are essential to deterring crime, and persistent congressional interference is at odds with that goal. Given recent experience, these delays could be extensive, preventing courts from imposing longer sentences while legislation languishes in Congress.
In a press release about H.R. 7530, Schwalb included a link to that letter and said:
Congress cannot have it both ways – they cannot both criticize DC’s crime rate and then block our every attempt to reduce crime. If passed, this bill would prevent DC leaders from taking critical steps needed to improve public safety and protect District residents – including efforts to increase criminal penalties or create new categories of offenses. This is pure political theatre from national politicians attempting to score points for their next hometown election. It won’t make us safer, and in fact will put the lives of everyone who lives, works, and visits DC at greater risk. Congress should remember the principles of self-governance and local autonomy on which this country was founded, and focus on the problems that their own constituents – thousands of miles away – elected them to solve.
On May 14, 2024, D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) called on the House to vote against H.R. 7530 the following day. According to Norton, “Passage and enactment would be the most substantial rollback of D.C.’s authority to govern itself in 30 years.” She continued to critique the bill:
The D.C. CRIMES Act, which was introduced by a member of Congress from Florida, states the D.C. Council may not ‘enact any act, resolution, or rule to change any criminal liability sentence in effect on the date of the enactment of the DC CRIMES Act of 2024.’ This provision, which does not define the term ‘criminal liability sentence,’ is as poorly drafted as it is offensive. If D.C. wanted to increase penalties for violent crime, it could not do so under this bill. Perhaps most egregiously, it could even be construed by a court to prevent D.C. from establishing any new crimes at all.
On May 14, 2024, the Biden Administration issued the following Statement of Administration Policy regarding H.R. 7530:
The Administration strongly opposes H.R. 7530, the D.C. Criminal Reforms to Immediately Make Everyone Safe (D.C. CRIMES) Act of 2024, which would prevent the District of Columbia (D.C.) from increasing criminal penalties. Earlier this year, the District enacted the Secure D.C. Act, with the Mayor’s strong support and no opposition in the D.C. Council, which gave police and prosecutors new tools – including increased penalties – to address gun violence and carjackings. Had the D.C. CRIMES Act of 2024 been enacted at the time, it would have blocked the District’s increases to criminal penalties. The D.C. CRIMES Act of 2024 is a counterproductive and destructive invasion of the District’s right to self-governance and would impede public safety and crime reduction. This bill highlights why the District of Columbia should have statehood.
Biden is correct. If D.C. were to become a state, it would not be the victim of such Congressional overreach.
The next day, Norton issued a press release that included Biden’s view and her Floor statement as prepared for delivery. She made many of her usual comments about Congressional having authority (but not duty) to legislate on D.C. and D.C. residents not voting for the 535 voting Members of Congress. She remarked, “The merits of this bill should be irrelevant, since there is never justification for Congress legislating on local D.C. matters. However, I will discuss this bill” and
This bill would be the biggest rollback of D.C. self-government in a generation. This bill says the D.C. Council may not “enact any act, resolution, or rule to change any criminal liability sentence in effect on the date of the enactment of the DC CRIMES Act of 2024.” This provision, which does not define the term criminal liability sentence, is as poorly drafted as it is offensive. It takes away D.C.’s authority to increase or decrease statutory criminal penalties. If D.C. wanted to increase penalties for violent crime, it could not do so. This bill could even be construed to prevent D.C. from establishing any new crimes at all.
and
This bill also reduces the maximum age of eligibility for D.C.’s Youth Rehabilitation Amendment Act of 1985. D.C. is not the only jurisdiction to have such a so-called young adult offender law. Alabama, Florida, Michigan, New York, South Carolina and Vermont have such laws. The sponsor of this bill is from one of those six states.
Norton’s Floor statement then contained Norton’s typical points about the Revolutionary War and her D.C. statehood bill. She called on Representatives to “keep their hands off D.C.”
Representative Betty McCollum (D-MN) issued a Statement for the Record on the bill, saying:
Our constituents did not elect us to get involved in the local politics of our nation’s capital city. Yet, House Republicans think it’s appropriate to waste Congress’s time to limit Washington, D.C.’s ability to police itself. Congress does not have the authority to pass such a resolution for Minnesota or any other state—and we would not have that power over D.C. and its 700,000 residents if the District was granted statehood as the majority of its residents’ support.
Prior to voting on H.R. 7530, the House debated the bill. The proceeding was similar to other Congressional discussions about D.C. Members attacked D.C.’s crime and D.C. government, exposed hypocrisy, and talked about non-D.C. issues, including the January 6th insurrection. They also corrected each other.
Opening debate, bill sponsor Representative Byron Donalds (R-FL) attacked D.C., saying, “Throughout this work, one thing has been made abundantly clear: The progressive policies of the District of Columbia City Council are simply not working.” He applauded Congressional interference:
Last year, the Congress successfully blocked the D.C. Council's Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022 by passing the bipartisan H.J. Res. 26, the first law passed by the 118th Congress. That was a great first step toward addressing the rising crime in D.C., but that only kept the problem from getting much worse.
He said H.R. 7530 continued that work and “overturns targeted portions of the D.C. Council's Youth Rehabilitation Act by amending the definition of a youth offender from a person under the age of 25 to under the age of 18.” He showed that his bill would curtail D.C. home rule, remarking, “the bill prohibits the D.C. Council from amending its sentencing and criminal liability laws, locking into place the current D.C. criminal law and leaving Congress as the sole authority to amend such laws in the future.” Just as Republicans claimed credit for forcing D.C. to act on Gaza protests at the George Washington University (GW) (the subject of the “D.C.: Congress’s Perennial Punching Bag – This Time is Around The George Washington University’s Protests on Gaza” blog post), Donalds gave Congress credit for the D.C. Council’s actions, saying:
The D.C. Council would have succeeded in implementing radical soft-on-crime policies if it were not for the bipartisan effort of this Congress to disapprove of the D.C. Council's legislation. Even Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser vetoed the progressive criminal reform package, only for her veto to be overturned by the D.C. City Council.
House Oversight and Accountability Committee Ranking Member and constitutional law professor Jamie Raskin (D-MD) spoke, first criticizing the bill’s name:
Mr. Speaker, I start by humbly suggesting that the majority needs someone new working on legislative acronyms for these messaging bills. This is the DC CRIMES Act, which stands for the D.C. Criminal Reforms to Immediately Make Everyone Safe Act of 2024. ``Immediately make everyone safe.'' That doesn't sound like legislation. It sounds like a Penn & Teller magic trick to me. If the gentleman from Florida can actually immediately make everyone safe, the gentleman should not only be Donald Trump's running mate, as I keep hearing about, but the gentleman should be the Mayor of the District of Columbia.
He attacked Congressional interference in local D.C. issues:
The D.C. Criminal Reforms to Immediately Make Everyone Safe Act is the fourth bill that the majority has brought to the floor to vilify, heckle, and micromanage the elected Mayor and Council of the District of Columbia on the appalling conceit that the distinguished Members of the Republican Conference from Florida or Kentucky or Arizona care more about public safety and public welfare in Washington, D.C., than do the 700,000 people who live there and their elected officials on the D.C. Council and the Mayor.
Like Norton, Raskin described H.R. 7530 as worse than other bills:
It doesn't simply overturn one specific current D.C. law. It permanently strips D.C. of authority over any of its criminal laws, making this legislation, perhaps inadvertently, I concede, the largest proposed rollback of D.C.'s authority to govern itself in nearly 30 years.
According to Raskin, if H.R. 7530 were to become law, “the D.C. Council could never increase criminal penalties again without Congress acting first, nor could it create any new criminal offenses at all.” Raskin discussed the recent D.C. Council-passed Secure DC Omnibus Emergency Amendment Act of 2024, which increased criminal penalties and created new criminal offenses. He referred to H.R. 7530 as a “naked power grab against Washington.” Highlighting hypocrisy, Raskin stated
In any event, for my Republican colleagues who love to castigate the people of D.C., who I concede voted more than 90 percent against Donald Trump in the last election, I would respectfully suggest that the majority considers the following fact: D.C. has higher maximum criminal penalties than many Republican States do.
Then, Raskin discussed D.C. statehood:
[O]ur friends in Washington, 713,000 taxpaying, draftable U.S. citizens, have petitioned for statehood because they no longer want to be kicked around by other people's Representatives. They want to have an equal say in this body and an equal say in the U.S. Senate. They don't want other people's Representatives telling them that they can't pass the criminal offenses or the increased criminal sentences that they want for their crimes.
Representative Andy Biggs (R-AZ) attacked D.C. and the D.C. Council, agreeing with Donalds that “The D.C. Council had not taken action that they needed to take. In fact, they
had gone the other way and only recently were converted after Congress put pressure on them to make changes.” He continued attacking the D.C. Council, remarking, “The D.C. Council continues to push progressive policies that make everyone in D.C. unsafe. Their inaction has endangered residents of and visitors to our Nation's Capital.” However, Biggs acknowledged the D.C. Council’s work on crime, remarking,
Congress responded by blocking the reckless D.C. act from taking effect by advancing the bipartisan H.J. Res. 26 into law. The response from the D.C. Council was to then pass another bill, the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act, which targeted D.C.
Biggs blamed the D.C. “Council's continued soft-on-crime agenda” for an increased amount of crime in the nation’s capital. Biggs ended with the following egregious comment:
[I]f we enact Congressman Donalds' bill, they will not be able to revert to their soft-on-crime ways, which has made D.C. unsafe for people, the millions of people who want to come and visit here and for the residents of this city.
After Norton spoke, the debate went into somewhat unrelated partisan attacks, which is not uncommon when Congress discusses D.C. Perhaps responding to Raskin’s comments on the title of H.R. 7530, Representative Timothy Burchett (R-TN) said, “much has been made about the title of this bill, but I would remind my friends across the aisle that they had a bill called the Inflation Reduction Act and it spent over a trillion dollars and inflation has not been reduced.” Like other Republicans, he attacked the D.C. saying it is “still pushing policies every day that prevent criminals from being brought to justice.”
Donalds made the following paternalistic comment:
[T]he D.C. Council has had ample opportunity to fix these issues in D.C., and they have refused until very recently, so it is just a matter of simple logic that unless Congress actually decides to use its authority, what would make us think that the D.C. Council will actually act in the interests of the citizens of the District?
Representative William Timmons (R-SC) said that he tells people that “D.C. is not safe.” He discussed a stabbing that occurred three hours ago in the afternoon blocks away and a nearby armed carjacking 12 hours before. He discussed recent GW protests and Congress:
[W]e know how bad it is here, we were just on the GW campus where the mayor refused to enforce the rule of law. There were 250 people trespassing on the yard. The president of the university begged for the city to enforce the rule of law, and they didn't for 10 days. It required an Oversight hearing for her to actually do her job, to tell the MPD to arrest people.
Timmons echoed Republicans, attacking the D.C. Council and saying “the D.C. Council has lost the faith of this institution.” He repeated Republican talking points about attacks on Members of Congress. He also said that teenagers would go to prison if they killed someone in South Carolina.
Raskin again talked about what happened in states of some Republican Members, saying:
Before the gentleman leaves the Chamber, I thought I might note, I am going to give him some examples, some anecdotes and data since he appears to be legislating by vignette: In Summerville, South Carolina, last week there was a severe armed carjacking by three teenage suspects. In April, a man wanted for murder in Rock Hill was captured following another carjacking at a Huntersville QuikTrip. I could give you a dozen of those. I don't think that the answer to any of that would be to disenfranchise the people of South Carolina or to have Congress usurp the State legislative authority or the local authority there.
Raskin responded to comments that “we are going to take just a small step in the right direction” by asking, “How is it the right direction to deprive the people of the District of Columbia the power to have control over their own criminal sentencing, including the power to increase criminal sentences?” Raskin commented on hypocrisy:
The gentleman from South Carolina lectured the people of Washington, D.C., about criminal incidents taking place here, and of course there are criminal incidents taking place also in South Carolina in the exact same way. However, how about something that took place even closer to home? How about the violent mob insurrection where a mob incited by the ex-President violently assaulted Capitol Police officers and Metropolitan Police Department officers who were forced to deploy to the Capitol, and nearly 150 of them ended up brutalized, wounded, and hospitalized after being hit over the head or in the chest or stabbed or speared by steel pipes, Confederate battle flags, Trump flags, and American flags, shamefully? Yet, we have the ex-President and a number of people who are his sycophants over on that side of the aisle describing people who are in jail for that, a majority of them having pled guilty for those offenses, the others convicted after due process of law, calling those people hostages.
Raskin proceeded to define a hostage as “someone who has been illegally abducted by a terrorist or criminal entity, like Hamas, and held for a financial or political ransom.” He then said Republicans call January 6th prisoners, hostages.
The Speaker pro tempore said, “The Chair would remind Members to refrain
from engaging in personalities toward presumptive nominees for the Office of President.” That Member’s comments were similar to the following (as was stated in a June 21, 2024, The New York Times article title): “On the House Floor, Republicans Gag Mentions of Trump’s Conviction: During official proceedings of the G.O.P.-controlled chamber, speaking about former President Donald J. Trump’s felony conviction has been forbidden, while disparaging President Biden and Democrats is routine.”
At that time, Biden and Trump were their presumptive political party’s presidential nominees. In July 2024, within a week of Trump becoming the official Republican Presidential nominee, Biden ended his presidential campaign.
Donalds said, “I find that we are at this point in the debate where my friend from Maryland has lost the debate because now he is going back talking about other things that are not about the merits of this bill.” Donalds might not have realized that Raskin exposed hypocrisy about criminal justice and policing.
Representative Dan Bishop (R-NC) spoke. He said, “I was about to comment
that sooner or later you had to expect that the debate would be a rant about Donald Trump.” He said, “Nothing would keep the D.C. Council from creating new crimes. Nothing whatsoever. In fact, they would not be able to increase crime sentences, existing sentences for crimes, but they sure haven't shown any inclination whatsoever to do that.” He corrected Raskin:
The law professor from Maryland also made another elementary mistake in his recitation of the facts. As they said in law school, you have got to know the facts. He said that ``crime is down 16 percent in the past year in D.C.'' Look a little closer. Go to the website MPDC.DC.gov. That is the website for the Metropolitan Police Department. That reduction in crime that was cited, that is only for this year to date. Go look at last year, 2023. In that situation: homicide, up 35 percent; robbery, up 67 percent; violent crime total, up 39 percent, et cetera. Across the board, all crime totaled up 26 percent, just last year.
Bishop said, “The Constitution that Thomas Jefferson signed said the Congress shall have power ‘to exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District.” Bishop spoke about major Congressional interference in local D.C. affairs last year.
Raskin said
I do have to correct my friend in his history, because there might be some students watching this. Thomas Jefferson never signed the Constitution. He was, of course, on a diplomatic mission when the Constitution was being signed in Philadelphia, but he did write the Declaration of Independence.
Earlier in the debate, Raskin made the following history-related argument against H.R. 7530, which dictated to D.C. residents on crime, “If you read the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson set forth a bill of particulars against King George and the Parliament, and one of the central allegations of it was that they were denying the colonists the right to define criminal offenses for themselves.”
Raskin rebutted the Republican view that the D.C. government has not acted on crime:
The other side says, bizarrely, that the District of Columbia Council and the Mayor should be denied the authority to increase criminal sentences forthwith because they have shown no inclination to increase criminal sentences. Leaving aside the absolute illogic of the argument, it is also false because the District of Columbia in the secure D.C. act, passed just 2 months ago, increased criminal sentences across the board, which I am afraid my friends were completely oblivious to when they started this legislation. They weren't aware of it.
He said, “What we have said is this is a massive assault on home rule, and it is also an embarrassing one because it cuts completely against all of the rhetoric that we are hearing from our colleagues across the aisle.” He attacked Republicans:
Unfortunately, this Congress has a hard time even keeping a Speaker in place without them trying to vacate the chair and topple the Speaker. This Congress, as the whole country knows, has been absolute chaos and dysfunction and disorganization from the beginning.
He exposed major flaws of H.R. 7530:
Yet, in this totally ham-handed and almost comically dysfunctional attempt to score points against D.C., they come up with legislation which says D.C. can never increase criminal penalties, again, when they are accusing D.C. of being too soft on crime, despite the fact that we are able to show that D.C. has tougher criminal sentences than many of the States represented by the Members who have been speaking about this over the last several days.
Raskin called this bill “a silly election-year stunt.” He closed by asking, “Why don't we have a hearing about Statehood for the District of Columbia, and let's keep the engines of democracy, freedom, and political equality in the country moving?”
Donalds ended debate on the bill. He remarked that the D.C. Council “has been derelict in its duty to actually provide for safety and security for the residents of the District of Columbia and the 19 million-plus Americans who come to the Federal enclave to visit the Nation's Capital.” He also critiqued Raskin, saying Raskin “has talked about everything from President Trump to political talking points to political futures. He has talked very little about the reality that exists here in the Nation's Capital.” He repeated Republican talking points about Members of Congress and staff being the crime victims in D.C.
On May 15, 2024, the House passed H.R. 7530 by a vote of 225 (including 207 Republicans and 18 Democrats) Yea, 171 Nay (including zero Republicans and 181 Democrats), zero Present, and 24 (including ten Republicans and 14 Democrats) Not Voting. At least some of the 18 Democrats (who voted Yea) also voted Yea on anti-D.C. legislation on the House Floor earlier this Congress. The May 15th vote is shown in the below graph:
Republicans were pleased that the House passed H.R. 7530. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chair James Comer (R-KY) released the following statement
The House Oversight Committee’s continued work in conducting oversight of the District of Columbia has resulted in today’s passage of a common-sense and urgently needed bill. The D.C. CRIMES Act will help rein in crime and lawlessness in Washington to restore law and order in our nation’s capital city. All Americans deserve to feel safe in their nation’s capital and thanks to the tireless work of this committee, today’s passage of Rep. Byron Donalds’ bill is a step in the right direction.
Bill sponsor Donalds issued a press release about the passage of H.R. 7530. Noting that that bill is his “fifteenth piece of legislation that has passed the U.S. House of Representatives during the 118th Congress,” Donalds attacked D.C.:
Our nation's capital is experiencing a historic crime wave as a result of progressive, soft-on-crime policy. This man-made public safety crisis is unacceptable. Congress has a constitutional responsibility to oversee the District of Columbia and it is imperative that we act quickly to assert our control when local government fails to do its job. The American people deserve a safe capital city and I will not stand idly-by as it descends into chaos. I am proud to receive the bipartisan support of my colleagues and look forward to the Senate's consideration of this important proposal.
The press release also included the following House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) partisan attack:
Democrats’ soft-on-crime policies have significantly changed policing across the country – and some of the worst consequences can been seen in our nation’s capital. Congress has a responsibility to act in the interest of the District of Columbia and Congressman Byron Donalds's DC CRIMES Act will address the persistent levels of violent crime in Washington, D.C.
On May 17, 2024, House Republicans issued a press release entitled “House Democrats Have Overwhelmingly Voted Against Our Law Enforcement Officers.” The release included H.R. 7530 as the first in a list of six bills “FAR LEFT DEMOCRATS HAVE OVERWHELMINGLY VOTED AGAINST OUR LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS DURING NATIONAL POLICE WEEK:” Again, Republicans used D.C. as a punching bag to score political points. They wrote,
[T]his week, House Republicans brought a series of bills to the floor as part of National Police Week that showed our continued support for our brave men and women in blue and would hold these violent criminals accountable. Far Left House Democrat overwhelmingly voted against these bills, once again reaffirming that they are the Party of lawlessness.
Former 2020 Democratic Presidential candidate Seth Moulton (D-MA) explained his Nay vote in a statement. He wrote “This bill changes the D.C. Home Rule Act to prohibit D.C.’s City Council from changing the city’s criminal sentencing laws.” He also remarked,
The Home Rule Act was enacted in 1973 to give D.C. the ability to have an elected mayor and city council. This allowed D.C.—which today has a population larger than Vermont or Wyoming—some measure of self-determination over their own laws. Every other state and city in the nation has this right, and I doubt any resident of any other city would enjoy the federal government swooping in to strip that right away just because some Members of Congress don’t like the laws they’ve enacted.
Moulton also wrote, “This bill is also ridiculous in that it prohibits not just lowering sentencing requirements, but raising them, too. Under this bill, D.C. wouldn’t be able to increase penalties for crime unless Congress were to vote to do so. And we all know how long Congress can take to act.” He also wrote:
Lastly, Congress already retains the right to review and veto any new laws passed by D.C.’s City Council. It isn’t necessary to take away the city’s right to make these laws entirely just to prevent any given law from going into effect. This can be—and is regularly—done on a case-by-case basis.
It is unlikely that this bill will become law. The Democratic-controlled Senate most likely will not pass this legislation, but it has passed other anti-D.C. bills during this Congress. President Biden opposes this bill, but he has not said he would veto it.
H.R. 7530 must not become law. D.C.’s home rule should not be eroded at all. If this bill becomes law, Congress might feel empowered to further curtail D.C. home rule, removing even more powers from D.C. government. As Biden stated, this legislation is reason why D.C. should become a state.
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