Kaine, Warner Join Republicans to Block DC Criminal Code Revisions
Dems Endless Fear of Being Called "Soft on Crime' Strikes Again
A Majority Black City with Majority Black Leadership is Overruled by Congress. “SHAMEFUL” wrote the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, headed by President Maya Wiley, on social media after the U.S. Senate voted 81 to 14 to nullify efforts by elected leaders in Washington, DC. to update the city’s criminal code.
"It's about a majority white body intervening in a majority Black city…”
Thirty three Democrats, including U.S. Senators Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Mark Warner (D-VA), joined Republican efforts to block revisions to the D.C. criminal code. The 84-14 vote in the U.S. Senate yesterday prevented an update to the criminal code for the first time in decades. Efforts to re-write the D.C. criminal code began in 2006.
All of the Republicans in the U.S. Senate voted to block the criminal code revisions.
Democrats Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) asserted on the Senate floor yesterday that Senate Republicans were misrepresenting what was in the new criminal code revisions. But fears in the Democratic Party of not being seen as “tough on crime” continue to dominate policy decisions on crime and policing regardless of facts and data over decades.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has been criticized for being in favor of “tough on crime” policies that yield questionable results, has been all but invisible during the criminal code debate.
“The criminal code that the D.C. Council passed gets rid of mandatory minimums that we know are a relic of a racist past — that we know disproportionately impacts Black and brown folks. It restores jury trials for misdemeanors which is a Constitutional right — and is in line with many other states.
“This is not just about Congress intervening in local affairs. It is a majority white body intervening in a historically Black city and a majority Black city. This is not just about a criminal code.”
The fact is the Executive of our country has failed to stand for D.C. statehood. And the executive of this city has failed to adequately address the root causes of violence,” said D.C. Ward Councilman Zachary Parker at a #HandsOffDC rally on Capitol Hill yesterday.
The moment reinforced that 680,000 residents in the District of Columbia have no autonomy to make their own laws through their elected Mayor and City Council. Washington, D.C. remains a majority Black city though the Black population is declining. Senators Kaine and Warner released a joint statement on March 8 on their vote against revising the criminal code in D.C. The nation’s capital is 40 percent Black and 37 percent white according to the 2020 Census. Officials in D.C. had been working on the criminal code revisions for over a decade.
“Both the city council chairman—who has withdrawn the legislation—and the mayor have suggested that these changes to the DC criminal code are not ready for prime time. We will vote for the resolution of disapproval and urge the mayor and council to work together to create a safer city for all, including the many Virginians who commute to DC for work every day,” the two Democrats stated.
D.C. City Council Phil Mendelson, attempted to pull back the crime code legislation after realizing it would be blocked in the U.S. Senate after President Biden’s lack of support was made public on March 2. President Biden told House Democrats in a closed door meeting with House Democrats at their retreat in Baltimore he would not veto Republican efforts. The news surprised many
Washington, D.C. has no federal representation in the U.S. Senate. D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton has no vote on certain legislation.
“Looking at the totality of this bill, it is impossible to say that it isn’t about making D.C. safer and having tougher penalties on crime. It actually quadruples the maximum penalty for attempted murder. It triples the maximum penalty for sexual assault because people in D.C. see those as serious crimes and they want to seriously increase the consequences for,” Sen. Booker said on the Senate floor on March 8 during debate.
“I have not in my ten years in the Senate seen such a distortion of facts, such a misrepresentation of what something is,” Sen. Booker added.
While serving in the U.S. Senate, President Biden drafted the 1994 Clinton Crime Bill and Sen. Chuck Schumer, currently the Senate Majority Leader, added significant input in favor of punitive measures. The 356-page Clinton Crime Bill was the largest crime bill in U.S. history and provided $9.7 billion in funding for prisons and 100,000 police officers. The Clinton/Biden/Schumer authored Clinton Crime Bill also expanded the federal death penalty and added many federal crimes in the federal code. The massive legislative effort was supported by many Democrats as a way to combat claims by Republicans that Democrats were “soft on crime.”
Almost 30 years later, GOP messaging on crime still has Democrats playing on defense. Democrats are often bending backwards to prove they are “tough on crime” as Republicans push for more punitive criminal penalties. The policies as part of the “war on drugs” has made the U.S. first in the rate of incarceration in the world at a cost of $83 billion per year according to the Prison Policy Initiative.
Republicans in the Senate, including Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), focused on carjacking in D.C. and focused on how the new criminal code would reduce maximum penalties for that crime. The revised criminal code would decrease the current maximum penalty for car jacking from 40 years to 24 years.
“DC is united in its fight for self determination, for representation, for safety and security. Those are the ideals that started America, and this body shouldn't interrupt a city trying to live its American ideals that we take for granted,” said Sen. Booker during the debate on #HJRes26.
Fourteen Senators voted in favor of governing autonomy for the District of Columbia. They were Senators Booker (D-NJ), Van Hollen (D-MD), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Bernie Sanders (D-VT), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Pete Welch (D-VT), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Ed Markey (D-MA) and Jack Reed (D-RI). Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock voted “present.”
“The passage of the disapproval resolution marks a new low in D.C.’s half-century of self-governance. Congress has only stepped in to block local bills on three occasions since the city gained an elected mayor and legislature in the mid-1970s, and no such effort has been successful over the last three decades,” wrote reporter Martin Austermuhle in DCist on March 8.
D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb criticized Republicans who led the effort and the Democrats who joined them for blocking the update to the District’s criminal code.
“Local autonomy and self-governance are fundamental American values. Any attempt to replace District residents’ will with that of federal politicians elected hundreds of miles away violates the basic freedoms and principles on which this country was founded. To overturn our local, democratically enacted laws — the product of 10+ years of collaboration between law enforcement, judges, and policy experts — without any independent analysis, review, or alternative proposal, is not only undemocratic, but also careless,” D.C. Attorney General Schwalb said.
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