Senate Democrats will be forced to take a stand on a Republican-drafted measure to nullify a District of Columbia law reducing the penalties for some violent crimes despite a last-minute attempt by the city council to take back the legislation.
(Bloomberg) — Senate Democrats will be forced to take a stand on a Republican-drafted measure to nullify a District of Columbia law reducing the penalties for some violent crimes despite a last-minute attempt by the city council to take back the legislation.
A Senate leadership aide said the vote this week on the GOP effort to kill the local law cannot be stopped. That means all senators will have to go on the record saying whether they support the more lenient sentencing, a move that will be especially awkward for Democrats up for reelection in 2024.
Democrats say they support the capital city’s right to make its own laws, but some lawmakers are more concerned about GOP attacks that they are soft on crime as the campaign season approaches.
The Senate measure has been gaining momentum, with Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania joining all Senate Republicans in support.
In a surprise move, President Joe Biden said last week he’d sign the Republican legislation, reversing his earlier position and subsequently angering statehood advocates and others in the District.
Senator Dick Durbin on Illinois, the No. 2 Democratic leader, said he was among Democrats who had been prepared to vote against the legislation but were rethinking after Biden’s shift. He said he was still reviewing the details of the District’s law to decide what he’ll do.
“There are parts of it I like and parts of it I don’t like, but with the president’s announcement I think most of us are reviewing our thoughts on it right now,” Durbin told reporters.
Phil Mendelson, the chairman of the DC Council, told reporters Monday that he had sent a letter to the Senate withdrawing the criminal code from review. He said his action means “the clock stops” on the congressional review period. He said the council would have time to re-assess the law and also explain better “what the bill does and does not do.”
“It’s clear that Congress is intending to override that legislation,” Mendelson said. “The withdrawal means that it is no longer properly before Congress.”
But the aide said the seldom-used statute that gives Congress the authority to turn back the city’s laws doesn’t allow for the vote to be stopped despite the council’s move.
White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden still planned to sign the bill overturning the law if it comes to his desk.
The crime bill reduces penalties for a variety of violent criminal offenses at a time when crime in Washington is soaring. In 2021 and 2022, homicides reached levels not seen since 2003, according to the Washington Post. Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Police Department said there have been 99 carjacking offenses in the District as of March 6, two-thirds of them involving guns.
The House already passed its own version of the measure. Congress has nullified acts of the D.C. Council on only three occasions, the last time in 1991.
(Updates with comment from Durbin, in sixth and seventh paragraphs.)
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