After Congress cut Washington, D.C.’s, budget by over $1 billion in March, Speaker Mike Johnson said he wanted to pass a bill to restore the spending “as quickly as possible.”
“We’re not delaying this for some political purpose,” Johnson told reporters.
But with the House preparing to consider three other Washington-specific bills that would reduce the District’s autonomy this week while the budget fix bill remains unacted on, D.C. advocates say the speaker’s actions are much louder than his words.
“I don’t think that they are concerned with actual governance,” said Alex Dodds, co-founder of Free DC. “They are concerned with weaponizing a political agenda regardless of actual outcomes for communities.”
The House Rules Committee met on Monday to tee up four bills for floor action, including three that would override local laws enacted by the D.C. city council: one that would prevent noncitizens living in Washington from voting in local elections; another that would force D.C. agencies to cooperate with federal immigration authorities; and a third that would reverse parts of a police accountability overhaul by reinstating the right of Metropolitan Police officers to negotiate disciplinary policies through collective bargaining. (An unrelated fourth bill would reschedule fentanyl-related substances.)
In March, the GOP-controlled Congress passed a continuing resolution that kept spending at fiscal 2024 levels — including for the District, which was already operating under its fiscal 2025 budget. The move effectively cuts the D.C. budget by $1.1 billion.
While the Constitution provides Congress plenary power to approve D.C.’s budget, lawmakers have normally deferred to local officials to manage the district’s finances. The Senate immediately passed a bill to restore the funding and let Washington operate under its original fiscal 2025 budget, and President Donald Trump soon after posted on social media urging the House to do the same, “IMMEDIATELY.”
Johnson had told reporters that while he wanted to pass the budget fix, the GOP’s reconciliation package was taking priority. But with the reconciliation package now in the Senate’s hands, Johnson still hasn’t gone forward with the fix and is instead now moving on these three bills.
At Monday night’s Rules meeting, Republicans voted down an attempt by Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon to allow floor consideration of the budget fix.
“We have Republicans on the record saying that they support it,” Dodds said of the budget fix, pointing to comments by Johnson, Trump and House Oversight Chair James R. Comer. “But it’s not a priority. What is a priority is disenfranchising D.C. residents and doing things that no one has asked for.”
Johnson’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
After waiting around in limbo for weeks, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser unveiled a supplemental budget two weeks ago that cuts services and freezes hiring to address the gap but avoids layoffs.
Given Congress’ oversight, D.C. policies often get caught up in national political debates. The bills debated by House Rules on Monday all advance Republican narratives around crime and immigration.
Republicans have argued that the police bill, introduced by Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., would help Washington recruit and retain cops. According to the Department of Justice, violent crime in D.C. fell to a 30-year-low in 2024.
D.C.’s 2022 law allowing noncitizens to vote, which is limited to just local elections, has been rhetorical fodder for Republicans pushing for a voter ID bill in all federal elections, even though numerous studies show incidents of voter fraud are exceedingly rare. A bill from Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, would simply repeal the local statute.
Judicial Watch, a conservative group opposed to letting noncitizens vote in local elections, found that 388 foreigners voted in D.C.’s local general election in 2024, out of more than 328,000 total ballots cast that fall.
The House GOP passed a similar bill last year that would have repealed D.C.’s local voting decision, but it stalled in the Senate.
The other proposal, from Louisiana Republican Rep. Clay Higgins, would prohibit D.C. from restricting officials from sharing information about a person’s immigration status with the Department of Homeland Security or from complying with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer request.
A late amendment removes an exception to the bill that would have allowed local officials not to share the immigration status of crime victims or people reporting crimes. As part of the rules package, the amendment will be considered adopted when the bill goes to the floor. Republicans on the panel voted down an attempt by Rules ranking member Jim McGovern to reinstate the exception.
Speaking at the Monday night meeting, some Democrats compared the push to overrule D.C.’s locally elected officials to President Donald Trump’s decision over the weekend to deploy the National Guard in Los Angeles over the wishes of California’s governor.
“It is ironic that the overreach of these bills before us today regarding the District of Columbia reflect a similar disregard,” said acting Oversight ranking member Stephen Lynch, D-Mass.
The House is now expected to vote on the bills this week.
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