WASHINGTON — Washington, D.C., city leaders weathered a barrage of criticism from Republicans at a House Oversight Committee hearing on Wednesday. The District's chief financial officer, two councilmen and the chairman of the D.C. Police Union testified on a GOP-led effort to block an overhaul to the city's criminal code. It's the latest in a series of moves to put Democrats on the defensive about crime.
"D.C. clearly has a crime crisis," House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., said in his opening statement, citing recents reports of shootings and carjackings in the District.
Nearly every Republican on the panel repeated Comer's analysis, accusing the two councilmen of adopting "soft on crime" policies. Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., who grilled D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson about public safety, homelessness and the state of local schools, slammed the city's leadership ahead of the hearing.
"Washington, D.C. is one of the worst-run cities in the country," Rep. Grothman said.
The Wisconsin lawmaker, who introduced legislation in the past to ban certain race-related curricula in D.C. public schools, defended the committee against complaints of overreach.
"And I think, therefore, something should be done," he said. "It's really an international embarrassment when you compare it to what's going on around other capitals of the world."
Republicans on the committee signaled for continued federal intervention in city affairs. Congress blocked revisions to D.C.'s criminal code earlier this month and a GOP-backed effoert to nullify a police reform bill the D.C. Council passed in December was introduced earlier this month. Chairman Mendelson took isssue with Congress's meddling.
"Congress had, until recently, successfully overturned a Council-passed law only four times, and not since 1991," Mendelson said in his opening statment. "Yet this month—less than three months into the 118th Congress—the House, the Senate, and President Biden chose to spend their time and energy second guessing and ultimately overturning a long overdue rewrite of the D.C. Criminal Code nearly two decades in the making."
Local officials weren't the only ones demanding that Congress keep its hands off D.C. Residents rallied outside the Capitol and oustide the hallway of the hearing on Wednesday.
"We fight, elect and sometimes believe in our own local elected officials," Travis Ballie, a longtime D.C. resident, said. "We've had an opportunity to be in conversation with them, to vote for them and have our views as residents…[Congress] should expand our local democratic rights and focus on their own constituents in their own states."
Ballie was one of several dozen Washingtonians who sat inside the hearing. He scoffed at Republicans' criticism of the proposed changes to the District's criminal code.
"If we want to lower crime, we should bring our criminal justice laws into the 21st century, not the 19th century," Ballie said. "I really believe we made a step forward with passing this criminal justice reform set of policies."
The group of D.C. residents at the hearing also asked lawmakers to support their push for statehood.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said while President Joe Biden backs the calls to make the District the 51st state, he signed the federal bill to override D.C.'s crime revisions after discussing the matter with Mayor Muriel Bowser, who initially vetoed it; her veto was overridden by the D.C. Council.
It's unclear if the president or the Democrat-controlled Senate will now support the federal measure to block the city's police reform legislation.