For the second day in a row, the House passed legislation that would counteract local D.C. crime and policing laws, angering local advocates.
A number of Democrats crossed the aisle to vote with their Republican colleagues this week, ignoring pleas from D.C. leaders. Some described a sense of betrayal.
“[Minorty Leader] Hakeem Jeffries met with almost half of the DC Council … maybe a week ago, said some nice things about D.C. to them. And then when push came to shove he totally abandoned D.C. in declining to whip this vote,” said Ankit Jain, one of D.C.’s two shadow senators. “We have a Democratic Party that has lost its way a little bit and is trying to figure out what’s the path back.”
Jeffries’ office and Minority Whip Katherine M. Clark’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
On Wednesday, 29 Democrats voted in favor of legislation that would lower the standards for D.C. police to engage in vehicular chases of fleeing suspects. Introduced by Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., it would roll back local restrictions that allow car chases only when police suspect a violent crime or an immediate threat of death or serious injury to another person.
Opponents of the bill said high-speed pursuits on crowded city streets can endanger the public and that D.C. should be left to decide its own policing policies. Supporters argued that police should have more leeway to give chase. The final vote tally was 245-182.
A second bill, which would eliminate the local commission tasked with nominating D.C. judges and empower President Donald Trump to unilaterally make selections, passed on a party-line vote.
Even more Democrats supported measures aimed at D.C. on Tuesday. Thirty-one of them backed a proposal to drop the maximum age for youth offenders from 24 to 18, while eight voted in favor of allowing 14-year-olds to be tried as adults in certain cases.
Rep. Dave Min, D-Calif., was among the eight, all of them Frontline Democrats, a distinction by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for candidates with the most competitive races.
“I strongly believe in D.C. statehood and home rule and I oppose President Trump’s unlawful overreach in D.C.,” Min said in a statement Tuesday. “At the same time, I take violent crime seriously and have a long record of working closely with national and local law enforcement to improve community safety.”
Min on Wednesday voted against the police chase bill.
“I am for D.C. home rule. I would like for D.C. to become a state … but I’m a prosecutor. I believe that everybody’s entitled to live in a safe community,” said Rep. Eugene Vindman, a Virginia Democrat who voted in favor of three of the bills. “I think Democrats can be tough on crime. We’re all believers in law and order.”
Crime has been a sore spot for Democrats since 2020, when the death of George Floyd, a Black man killed by a white Minneapolis cop, catalyzed an activist movement that popularized the phrase “defund the police.” That push became associated with Democratic politics but proved widely unpopular, and many politicians on the left have tried to distance themselves from the sentiment in the years since.
“He wants to get reelected … and that’s true about all of these frontline Democrats,” Jain said of Min. “And so I don’t think we need to pretend about why they’re doing this.”
The latest wave of GOP-led bills targeting local D.C. laws — including several others that advanced out of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last week but have yet to receive a floor vote — comes amid broader federal interest in the District.
Trump in August invoked a section of the 1973 Home Rule Act to federalize the Metropolitan Police Department. That 30-day takeover ended last week, but Trump has threatened to take the reins of MPD anew. And he deployed the National Guard and other federal agencies in a crackdown on crime and immigration.
“This is a shameful display. As Democrats, we are supposed to believe in democracy, but instead, you showed a callous disregard for D.C.’s democratic institutions,” said D.C. Councilmember Janeese Lewis George in a statement in response to Tuesday’s vote.
D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, also in a statement on Tuesday, said the focus would now shift to the Senate, where at least seven Democrats would have to vote with Republicans to overcome a filibuster. The D.C. Council recently contracted a lobbying firm for the month of September, a spokesperson for Mendelson confirmed earlier this month.
“You had a good number of Democrats vote yes in the House, and so that is cause for concern,” Jain said. “But I’m not prejudging anything. We’re just going to continue our advocacy and see what happens.”
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