Thirty-three Democrats in the Senate joined Republicans on Wednesday in overwhelmingly rejecting the District’s criminal code rewrite.
The nullification by Congress of a locally approved law, which hasn’t happened in more than three decades, now goes to the White House, where President Biden has said he will sign the Republican measure overturning the D.C. Council’s action.
Amid growing outcry nationwide over lawlessness and crime, even top Democrats like Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer and Michigan’s Sen. Debbie Stabenow joined the 81-14 majority rejecting the District’s criminal code overhaul.
Democrats in deep-red states who face reelection in 2024 — including Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Montana’s Jon Tester of Montana and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia — were among those abandoning the District. So were battleground state Democrats, such as Sen. Robert Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania, and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, Arizona independent, both of whom are seeking reelection in 2024.
The rewritten criminal code would have lowered penalties for crimes such as carjacking and would’ve allowed violent offenders a chance to be released from prison early.
The White House said last month that the president supported the District’s right to self-rule, but Mr. Biden made a U-turn when it became clear that the political momentum against the measure was too great.
“Democrats were not happy. The White House put out a formal statement opposing us. The vast majority of House Democrats voted against us,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican, said during his floor speech.
“But then President Biden reversed himself,” he went on. “The public pressure was so great that the president now says he wants to sign the same Republican bill that he’d previously announced he opposed.”
D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson tried Monday to spare the law’s public demise by announcing an unprecedented withdrawal of rewritten criminal code, a piece of legislation that the council persisted with despite Mayor Muriel Bowser’s veto.
Senate aides said in response that such a maneuver was not possible.
Republicans argued during the debate over the code that the District was acting irresponsibly in lowering criminal penalties amid a 33% increase in homicides and over 100 carjackings so far this year.
Conservative lawmakers blamed the influence of the nationwide anti-police movement that Republicans argue is fueling the crime waves in cities.
“Come to the real world, Mr. President and the D.C. Council,” said Sen. Joni Ernst, Iowa Republican. “Perhaps the ‘defund the police’ crowd has finally learned what everyone else has known for ages: Criminal penalties are not just suggestions, they protect the public.”
As lawmakers debated the measure, activists protested the Senate’s action with a demonstration outside the nearby Union Station.
After an attempted carjacking was reported on social media within sight of the demonstration, Sen. Bill Hagerty, the Tennessee Republican who captained the Senate’s disapproval effort, took note.
“Just moments ago over at Union Station where there’s a protest going on right now — protesting our actions here, people protesting in favor of this soft-on-crime position the D.C. Council has taken — those protesters just witnessed an attempted carjacking,” Mr. Hagerty said.
He added that the suspect was confronted and fled the area by running right through the protest crowd.
Only a few Democrats spoke out in support of the District code.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, from Maryland, affirmed his belief in statehood for the federal city and saw the resolution as violating the District’s right to autonomy.
“In my view, this resolution is an attack on the democratic rights of the people of District of Columbia, which has its own duly elected democratic representatives there, and the D.C. Council,” Mr. Van Hollen said.
He also argued that the rewritten penalties for carjackings in D.C.’s overhauled criminal code are still tougher than those of multiple states, including reliably red Kentucky.
New Jersey Sen. Cory A. Booker argued the District had stiffened the penalties for attempted murder, sexual assault and assault on a police officer in the rewritten code.
Ms. Bowser has proposed a compromise rewrite that restores harsher penalties for certain violent crimes and delays the implementation date until 2027.
Her proposal, now the only legislation addressing the code on the books, awaits a committee hearing.
After the votes were cast, supporters of the overhauled criminal code bemoaned that the law’s nullification as, among other things, a form of political scare tactic.
“The facts didn’t matter to many in Congress, nor do they appear to matter to the White House,” said Amy Fettig, head of the Sentencing Project, a brain child of progressive-minded billionaire George Soros. “This vote and the president’s remarks are a deeply concerning return to the scare-tactic politics of the 1990s.”
Activists at the Union Station rally earlier Wednesday railed against the favored Republican argument about the new code lowering penalties for crimes.
“If it was policing or if it was jail that would have saved us, then we would have already been saved,” one of the speakers said.
Multiple D.C. council members were in attendance, such as Janeese Lewis George, Zachary Parler, Robert White, Brianne Nadeau, Charles Allen and Mr. Mendelson.
Meanwhile, national union representatives for police stressed what was avoided thanks to the Senate’s bipartisan action.
“’Dangerous’ is the only word to describe the crime bill the D.C. City Council fought so hard for,” Fraternal Order of Police President Patrick Yoes said in a statement. “It’s hard to fathom how elected officials, charged with protecting the citizens of the District of Columbia, could be so reckless to pass a piece of legislation that includes provisions that would have only made an already out-of-control crime crisis even worse.”
Mr. Yoes added that it’s been one of the most harrowing years for police officers nationwide due to “pandering prosecutors and cynical politicians.”
He advised the D.C. Council to give law enforcement a seat at the table as it moves forward with Ms. Bowser’s version of the code rewrite.
• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.
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