President Joe Biden plans to veto a GOP-led measure that would roll back Washington, D.C., police reform legislation enacted last year, the White House said in a statement Monday.
While Biden doesn't support every aspect of D.C.'s Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act, "he will not support congressional Republicans’ efforts to overturn commonsense police reforms such as: banning chokeholds; limiting use of force and deadly force; improving access to body-worn camera recordings; and requiring officer training on de-escalation and use of force," the statement from the White House said in part.
The D.C. Council passed most aspects of the police accountability law on an emergency basis in 2020, amid the protests against police brutality following George Floyd’s killing. D.C. made the law permanent in December 2022.
Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia recently introduced a resolution to block the law.
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“Now that Congress has effectively used its constitutional authority to strike down the D.C. Council’s dangerous Revised Criminal Code Act, we must now move to swiftly block this anti-police measure to ensure our nation’s capital city is safe for all Americans,” Clyde said in a statement.
House Republicans led the effort to nullify the city's criminal code overhaul, which the D.C. Council passed late last year. President Biden signed that measure into law in March.
Under terms of Washington’s Home Rule authority, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability essentially vets all new D.C. laws and frequently alters or limits them through budget riders. But the criminal code rewrite is the first law to be completely overturned since 1991.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., has since pledged to increase congressional intervention in local D.C. affairs, and held a hearing on crime and policing in the nation's capital last month.
"Crime has risen dramatically, education levels have plummeted, and the city's finances are in disarray," Comer said during the March 29 hearing. "D.C. officials have not carried out their responsibility to serve their citizens."
Council Chair Phil Mendelson pushed back during his testimony at the hearing.
"Let me be clear: People should feel safe, and it is a problem that many residents of the District don't," Mendelson said. "But the number of violent crime incidents in 2022 was 45% lower than a decade earlier. And total violent crime last year was 7% less than the year before. I know this belies the common belief, and when it comes to crime, how people feel is important. But there is not a crime crisis in Washington, D.C."
Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Ala., at one point in the hearing said that D.C. schools are "not only drop out factories, they're inmate factories."
Other members of the committee, like Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., defended the District, saying that Congress should keep its hands off local laws.
"Let these people have their equal rights," he said. "Let them have their democracy."
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has agreed to testify at another committee hearing on D.C. crime and management scheduled for May.
