Last week, House Republicans, which is to say, fascists, unveiled a set of fourteen proposed bills to further deny the residents of the mainland colony democracy. One of the bills, H.R. 2693, the District of Columbia Electronic Transmittal of Legislation Act, is fine: because the mainland colony must have its budget approved by Congress, it needs to send its legislation to Congress. Currently, D.C. must send the legislation in paper format, which has led to some truly bizarre things regarding deadlines and shutdowns, and this allows D.C. to send legislation to Congress electronically. Fine. But the other thirteen represent a Republican attempt to further disenfranchise D.C.

I would like to think Senate Democrats would hold the line on this legislation, but they have shown a distressing willingness to fail the citizens of the mainland colony who lack any Senate representation whatsoever (e.g., Senate Democrats completely caved in the D.C. Crime Reform Bill), so there’s a good chance D.C. will get screwed. So let’s survey the thirteen bills:

H.R. ____, the District of Columbia Home Rule Improvement Act
This gives Congress more time to decide whether to approve legislation by D.C. It also would increases their say over ’emergency legislation.’ This is a power grab by Republicans, and sucks.

H.R. 5103, the Make the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful Act
It calls for the “removal of graffiti, enhanced private-sector collaboration, and restoration of Federal public monuments. Further, the bill establishes the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Commission to coordinate across federal agencies and D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, and to develop joint priorities to enable the full enforcement of Federal and local laws within the District.” Restoration of Federal public monuments is adding back all of the Neo-Confederate shit, and the proposed commission could be used a way to circumvent D.C.’s law enforcement priorities.

H.R. ____, the District of Columbia Cash Bail Reform Act
This would get rid of cashless bail, something Republicans everywhere have a hard on for. Cashless bail is one of D.C.’s criminal justice system’s saving graces, and removing it would imprison poor people simply for being poor–which can be devastating for keeping a job and so on. Remember, these might be innocent people. And with Pirro as District Attorney, she could use this as a tool to crush political dissent. Republican crime policy sucks and so does this bill.

H.R. ____, the Strong Sentences for Safer D.C. Streets Act
Under the guise of appealing to nationwide standards in sentencing, this would be used to impose draconian sentences on the convicted, regardless of what the residents of D.C. want. This is a power grab by Republicans, and the proposed bill sucks.

H.R. ____, to repeal D.C.’s Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act of 2016 and the Second Chance Amendment Act of 2022
This is vile, even for Republicans. The Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act allows for a review of juvenile sentences after they have served time for fifteen years. There are some people who might have changed their outlook on life after that time. We also know that a lot of criminals ‘age out’ of this sort of activity. Repealing the Second Chance Amendment makes it easier to dig through defendants’ juvenile records and also would repeal the automatic expungement of certain misdemeanors, including using weed. The proposed bill sucks.

H.R. 5163, the Clean and Managed Public Spaces Act
It criminalizes camping with a $500 and a maximum of thirty days in jail. Republicans are trying to criminalize both being homeless as well as political protest encampments. The proposed bill sucks.

H.R. 4922, the DC Criminal Reforms to Immediately Make Everyone Safer (DC CRIMES) Act
The bill would lower the definition of a “youth”–which isn’t the same as a juvenile–from 25 to 18. As noted above, the policy enacted by D.C. recognizes that people in their late teens and early twenties can be chuckleheads, and so incorporates some leniency in sentencing. Republicans also would remove the ability of judges to sentence youths to less than mandatory minimums (see the argument for D.C.’s policy in the previous sentence). It also would “prohibit D.C. from enacting any changes to the existing minimum sentencing laws and sentencing guidelines.” This is both a power grab and crappy Republican crime policy. The proposed bill sucks.

H.R. 5140, the District of Columbia Juvenile Sentencing Reform Act
This would lower the age of eligibility for juveniles to be tried as adults in D.C. for certain violent offenses (murder, first degree sexual abuse, burglary in the first degree, and robbery while armed) from 16 years to 14 years of age. Again, more shitty, ineffective anti-crime policy from Republicans. The proposed bill sucks.

H.R. ____, the SOAR Act Improvements Act
This essentially funnels money from D.C. public schools to private schools. This is forcing D.C. residents to further subsidize private schools, which is bog standard Republican policy. The proposed bill sucks.

H.R. 5107, Common-Sense Law Enforcement and Accountability Now in DC (CLEAN DC) Act
D.C. has enacted some mild policing reforms including “prohibiting officers from viewing worn body-camera footage when writing initial reports of an incident, removing all officers and police union representatives from the Police Complaints Board, stripping the D.C. police union of the right to collectively bargain over disciplinary matters, requiring a jury to consider if an officer consulted with mental health, behavioral health, or social workers before the use of deadly force, and imposing approval hurdles for the use of riot gear and less-lethal projectiles.” Obviously, Republican fascists don’t like any of this, and want to ban all of these reforms. The proposed bill sucks.

H.R. 5143, the District of Columbia Policing Protection Act
This would allow D.C. police to engage in high speed chases for non-violent crimes. Since the start of the occupation, the Park Police have had ten high speed chases for non-violent crimes, and this has resulted in six collisions. The proposed bill sucks.

H.R. 5125, the District of Columbia Judicial Nominations Reform Act
This bill would bill repeal the D.C. Judicial Nomination Commission, which currently provides a list of recommended D.C. judicial nominations candidates to the President which the President must select from for appointment. Instead, the president gets to directly nominate any judge of his choosing. This is another Republican power grab. The proposed bill sucks.

H.R. ____, the District of Columbia Attorney General Appointment Reform Act
This would remove D.C.’s residents ability to choose our own Attorney General, and would instead be appointed by the president. Since the creation of the office, D.C.’s attorneys general have successfully targeted fraud and financial crimes, while opposed federal takeover attempts. It should be obvious why Republican fascists want to make this a presidentially appointed position. Of course, there’s also some hilarious stupidity, as the Republican congressman sponsoring the bill believes that the D.C. attorney general is the reason felonies aren’t being prosecuted severely enough, when, in fact, D.C. prosecutors are U.S. attorneys appointed by the president and approved by the Senate. They really are this fucking stupid. The proposed bill sucks.

My concerns are two-fold. First, congressional Democrats have a long history of caving on crime-related legislation in general, but also specifically when it comes to D.C. (e.g., the 2023 Crime Reform Bill that chickenshit senate Democrats caved on). Second, I’ll have more to say about this tomorrow, but Republican anti-crime policies don’t work–if they did, there wouldn’t be a bunch of cities in Republican states that have worse crime rates than D.C.