The system worked

Our founding fathers, chased out of Philadelphia by angry citizens in 1783, drafted a new constitution that gave Congress control of a district not to exceed “ten miles square.” The national government needed its own capital district—not part of one of the states.

Over time, Congress allowed residents in the District of Columbia to have home rule, with a mayor and city council. But Congress has always retained the right to veto local legislation in the District of Columbia. This week, the system worked to protect the residents from their city council.

Racially and ethnically, Washington, D. C. is a highly diverse area, but it’s monolithic when it comes to progressive politics in local government. That D.C. government painted “Black Lives Matter” on a road by the White House when Mr. Trump served as president. The total cost of the paint job with an adjacent plaza was over $7 million in local tax dollars. Embracing the progressive prison and criminal justice reform movements that sprang up after the George Floyd riots, the city spent years revising its criminal code. The result would have given a get-out-of-jail-free card to felons.

The legislation, vetoed by Mayor Muriel Bowser, generated widespread opposition that ranged from police to the liberal editorial writers at the Washington Post. Undeterred, the District of Columbia’s city council overrode Mayor Bowser’s veto. The legislation ended life sentences for every crime and abolished mandatory minimum sentences for every crime except first-degree murder. It lowered the maximum sentences for gun crimes from 15 years to four. The legislation also reduced minimum penalties for carjackings, home invasions, and robberies at a time crime is on the rise in the District of Columbia.

Congress decided to act. House Republicans advanced legislation to block the district from implementing the law. Most Democrats opposed it even after President Biden criticized the Republican effort. Once the measure moved to the United States Senate, Republicans found enough Democrat support to vote to kill the district’s new law. President Biden announced that while he supports the district’s home rule, he would not veto the Republican effort. Political comedy ensued.

The day the House voted on the measure, a homeless man who had been in and out of jail attacked Congresswoman Angie Craig (D-Minn). She joined the GOP to vote to kill the law and persuaded a handful of Democrats to join them. Most, however, interpreted President Biden’s support for D.C. home rule as paramount and overrode their desire to be tough on crime.

Once the measure clearly had the votes in the Senate, and President Biden signaled he would not veto it, House Democrats flew into a rage. Several told national press outlets that President Biden had thrown them under the bus. They had, after all, voted against a tough-on-crime measure at a time voters were concerned about Democrats’ handling of that issue. They did so because they thought President Biden wanted them to prioritize home rule. On Wednesday, the Senate passed a resolution blocking the crime bill.

The bad blood has spilled into the national press, with multiple anonymous Democrats tying President Biden’s instability to his age and doubts about him running for a second term. These members of Congress suggest the president’s team is not working well and that his age and leadership are responsible. More notably, the Democrats have been exposed for putting progressive home rule politics of the District of Columbia ahead of the safety of Washington’s own residents.

The chief of police for the District of Columbia said, “The average homicide suspect has been arrested 11 times prior to them committing a homicide. That is a problem.” He is deeply concerned about the rates of recidivism in Washington and the effect of the district’s criminal code revisions. Based on the district police’s reporting in 2022, fifty-one per one thousand D.C. residents will be a victim of crime this year, giving the district one of the highest crime rates in the nation.

In Congress, House Democrats sided with woke policies until President Biden realized his party was getting clobbered in polls for being soft on crime. It should not have taken President Biden’s announcement that he would not veto the legislation to get Democrats to do the right thing. But it did. The announcement only came because Republicans chose to fight and have now scored a victory for law, order, and common sense. The system worked as designed to keep citizens safe, even from the insanity of D.C.’s own city council.