Republicans on Friday unveiled 14 bills intended to reduce local government autonomy and harshen punishments for youth and violent offenders in Washington, D.C amid President Trump’s crime crackdown in the nation’s capital.
“President Trump and House Republicans are committed to restoring law and order in our nation’s capital city. Under President Trump’s decisive leadership, crime in D.C. is now falling at an unprecedented rate,” House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said in a statement announcing the bills.
GOP lawmakers are proposing all that D.C. Council legislation undergo a 60-day congressional review period prior to its passage, while preventing council members from passing bills that are similar to measures disapproved by Congress.
The legislation also seeks to enact numerous adjustments to current law in the nation’s capital, including lowering the age for juveniles to be tried as adults from 16-years to 14 years of age for certain violent offenses, establishing a public website containing statistics on juvenile crime, and granting only Congress the authority to change existing minimum sentencing laws and sentencing guidelines.
A separate measure would repeal the Incarceration Reduction Act, which allows residents convicted of certain serious crimes committed before their 18th birthday to petition the court for a sentence reduction after serving at least 15 years in addition to other expungement opportunities.
Another effort aims to codify components of President Trump’s March executive order regarding beautification efforts in the District of Columbia to ensure federal coordination on graffiti removal and restoration of Federal public monuments.
The committee will hold a markup for the proposed legislation on Sept. 10 at 10 a.m.
Comer said it’s lawmakers’ “constitutional duty to oversee District affairs and make D.C. safe again.”
“The House Oversight Committee stands ready to back the President’s swift action by advancing comprehensive legislative reforms that empower District law enforcement and tackle the escalating juvenile crime crisis head-on,” Comer said.
Local leaders, however, have rejected the notion that federal input is needed to mitigate crime in the nation’s capital.
“As we know, the District has seen an over 50 percent decline in crime rates over the last two years, and while public safety remains our top priority, President Trump’s claim of an emergency in DC is wholly unjustified,” Council Member Janeese Lewis George (D) said in a statement on Trump’s D.C. takeover of the local police department and National Guard deployment early last month.
Her words have been echoed by her colleagues.
“We don’t need federal police patrolling our streets, intimidating our residents, shadowing our police. And we don’t need ICE in our community at all, disappearing our people and targeting folks just because of the color of their skin,” Council Member Brianne Nadeau (D) said in a statement.
“This has never been about public safety. This is about power, and control, and intimidation,” she continued.
This week, Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) and Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) both introduced bills advocating for the District of Columbia to have full control over the D.C. National Guard and the Metropolitan Police Department.
“D.C. residents are Americans, fully capable of governing themselves, including having full control of their police force and National Guard like residents of the states,” Norton said in a statement. “President Trump’s unprecedented federalization of the D.C. Police and his activation of the D.C. National Guard without D.C.’s consent underscore the necessity of D.C. statehood.”
On Thursday, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued the Trump administration over the deployment of National Guard troops throughout the city.
But on Tuesday D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser signed an order Tuesday authorizing coordination between local police and federal forces extending beyond President Trump’s declared emergency in the nation’s capital.
The order creates the Safe and Beautiful Emergency Operations Center (SBEOC) which is expected to handle requests submitted to federal partners which include promoting traditional policing practices such as not wearing masks, clearly identifying their agency and providing identification during arrests and encounters with the public, according to Bowser.
“I’m very proud of Washington,” Trump said after Bowser signed the Tuesday order. “It can be used as a template.”
The measure signed by the mayor outlines joint operations between local officials and the U.S. Marshals Service, FBI, U.S. Park Police, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), U.S. Capitol Police and the U.S. Secret Service.
