Battle over DC statehood collides with politics of crime

An effort to update Washington, D.C.’s criminal code, which ballooned into a national tussle involving the president and Congress, has dealt a serious blow to the city’s long-standing fight for autonomy – while underscoring just how politically potent the issue of crime is likely to be in 2024.

If the U.S. Senate votes, as expected, this week to prevent Washington’s criminal code reforms from taking effect, it will be the first time in three decades that Congress has directly blocked a measure passed by the city council. Already, a significant number of Democrats have criticized the D.C. bill – including President Joe Biden, who announced last week that he would sign the measure to block it. A last-ditch effort by the council to withdraw its own legislation on Monday, to avoid the humiliation of being big-footed by Congress, appears to have failed.

Like other major U.S. cities, Washington has seen a spike in crime over the past three years. So when the city council recently approved an extensive overhaul of its century-old criminal code – including expanding the right to jury trials for misdemeanors and reducing maximum sentences for certain violent offenses like carjacking – the timing struck even some Democrats as poor. Washington’s Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser vetoed the legislation, but the council overrode the mayor’s veto. 

In any other city, that would have been the end of the matter. But not in Washington, where the rules over who governs this 69-square-mile plot of land are complicated. 

Acting on a clause in the Constitution that gives Congress “exclusive power” over the district, Republicans in the U.S. House began pushing to block the revised criminal code. The GOP-led measure passed the House last month with the support of 31 Democrats – including Minnesota Rep. Angie Craig, who had been attacked in the elevator of her D.C. apartment building earlier that same day. 

Momentum swelled among Senate Democrats to publicly refute the council’s bill following Mr. Biden’s surprise announcement last week that he would sign the nullification measure, saying that while he supports D.C. home rule, he’s not in favor of “lowering penalties for carjackings.” Some reports now suggest more than 70 senators may ultimately vote for the measure. 

The whole episode represents a setback for the D.C. statehood movement, which won a majority vote in the U.S. House just two years ago. And it’s a measure of how politically perilous the issue of public safety has become for Democrats. Just a few years after some Democratic Party officials were openly debating the merits of policy measures such as “defunding the police,” the pendulum is swinging in the other direction, with legislators from swing states now concerned about being portrayed as “soft on crime” and Mayor Bowser pushing back against her city council’s reforms.

“I have one word: Chicago,” says GOP strategist Alex Conant when asked why so many Democrats are opposing the bill passed by Washington’s city council, which is itself made up of 11 Democrats and two independents. “The primary results in Chicago should be a wake-up call.”

Chicago’s Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot was ousted last month amid high disapproval ratings about how she handled the city’s rising crime. Two other Democrats have now advanced to the city’s April runoff, including Paul Vallas, who won the highest share of votes in the first round of voting after running an aggressively pro-police campaign. 

“Crime is a huge issue, and one that voters are punishing Democrats for at the local level,” Mr. Conant adds. “And at the end of the day, all politics is local.” 

A more nuanced debate

Advocates of Washington’s new criminal code say the revisions, which have been in the works for years, are necessary to bring the 1901 code into the 21st century. They add that many of the changes, which wouldn’t start rolling out until 2025, are more nuanced than what’s been characterized in the national debate. For example, while critics have seized on the move to reduce maximum sentences for certain violent offenses, advocates point out that the new guidelines are still more stringent than what’s on the books in many states and more in line with what’s typically being handed down. Other reforms include clarifying language in the old code that had led to confusion for prosecutors, including redefining certain offenses, and reducing sentences for defendants who have already served at least 20 years.

“It’s clear [many critics] haven’t even bothered to read the legislation,” says D.C. council member Charles Allen. “Speaker [Kevin] McCarthy yesterday said that D.C. was decriminalizing carjacking, when in fact it’s 24 years in prison for carjacking.” 

Twenty-four years would be the new maximum penalty for the most dangerous carjacking offenses, down from a previous maximum of 40 years, with the mandatory minimum for unarmed carjackings lowered from seven to four years. But those penalties are higher than in Mr. McCarthy’s home state of California, where penalties range between three and nine years, argues Mr. Allen.   

“D.C. needs this [new code], our courts need this, accountability needs this, fairness needs this,” says Mr. Allen. “What we don’t need is Congress sticking their nose into local affairs.”

Opponents, however, point to recent statistics. 

Homicides in the district reached a 16-year high in 2020 according to the Metropolitan Police Department, only to increase again in 2021. While the number dropped slightly last year, data from the first two months of 2023 shows an uptick of 30%.

Even more noticeable, say many Washington residents, has been a spike in thefts. The number of motor vehicle thefts so far this year is more than double the number at this point in 2022 – which represented an increase from the year before. The issue has been so pervasive that the Metropolitan Police Department has been distributing free steering wheel locks to owners of certain car models that have been particularly targeted. 

Although Elinor Hart, an organizer for the D.C. Statehood Coalition, calls the congressional resolution an “abomination” and an abuse of power, she recognizes the political calculus at play. 

“If you accuse someone who is up for reelection as being ‘soft on crime’ that’s terrifying for them,” says Ms. Hart. “And everyone in the House is going to be up in 2024.”

More than half of the 31 Democratic House members who voted alongside Republicans to repeal Washington’s criminal code represent districts that The Cook Political Report has rated as “competitive” next year. 

Some House Democrats were reportedly frustrated that Mr. Biden waited until after the House vote to voice his support for the nullification measure – after previously stating that his administration opposed it, calling it an “affront” to democratic values and to the district’s autonomy. Had he tipped his hand sooner, more House Democrats likely would have followed suit. Already, Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Jon Tester of Montana, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, and Tim Kaine of Virginia – all of whom are up for reelection next year – have announced they will support the disapproval legislation. On Tuesday Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that he, too, would vote with Republicans on the measure.

Some D.C. statehood supporters are accusing the president and others of sacrificing their cause to win elections.

“It’s not like Democrats never intervened in D.C. affairs under the Home Rule Act,” says George Derek Musgrove, professor of history at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and a board member for D.C. Vote. “It’s just that they did it for good reasons as opposed to political reasons.”

The Home Rule Act, which was passed by Congress in 1973, was Washington’s biggest step toward autonomy since the nation’s founding. While still granting Congress “ultimate legislative authority” over Washington, the act allowed the district to have “certain legislative powers” to govern itself. Most notably, the Home Rule Act established the city council and mayoral position as they are known today.  

Part of the authority that Congress withheld for itself is the ability to block any laws passed by the city council. Before this year, federal lawmakers had utilized that power just three times, although Congress has exercised its control over the district through other means such as appropriations. Still, local activists now worry congressional interference in city matters could become more common. In addition to the revised criminal code, the U.S. House also voted to repeal another city council bill last month, one that would allow noncitizens to vote in local elections. The congressional rebuttal to the council’s voting resolution passed with even broader support, with more than 40 Democrats joining Republicans.

Mutually exclusive goals

Despite the fact that Mr. Biden tried to thread the needle, saying that he still supports D.C. statehood even if he also supports overturning the council’s legislation in this particular instance, statehood advocates say the two principles are mutually exclusive. 

“The District of Columbia must be allowed to govern itself,” said Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, in a statement. “Democrats’ commitment to home rule should apply regardless of the substance of the local legislation.”

Even Mayor Bowser, who vetoed the council’s new criminal code, has lobbied the U.S. Senate not to pass the legislation blocking it because of the precedent it would set for her city’s government.  

“Affirmatively and verifiably,” this will set back efforts for D.C. statehood, says Mr. Musgrove. “It shows that this is not a principal issue for the Democratic Party.” 

That doesn’t mean Democrats have given up on statehood, of course. But it clearly has taken a back seat to crime – which almost 60% of Americans in a recent poll said should be a top priority for Congress and the president to address this year, topping illegal drugs, immigration, education, and the environment. D.C. statehood wasn’t on the list.