The top three elected officials in the District of Columbia were on Capitol Hill Thursday to defend their management of local law enforcement activities.
They were also on hand to push back against Republican aspersions about crime in the capital city that President Donald Trump used to justify his takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department and deployment of the National Guard.
Mayor Muriel Bowser, Council Chair Phil Mendelson and attorney general Brian Schwalb — all Democrats — were invited to appear before the GOP-led House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which last week approved a sweeping set of bills that would pare back the local government’s power to enact its law enforcement policies.
“We are a city under siege,” said Mendelson. “It is frustrating to watch this committee debate and vote on 14 bills regarding the district without a single public hearing, with no input from District officials or the public, without regard for community impact nor a shred of analysis, including legal sufficiency or fiscal impact.”
The officials emphasized that violent crime was down in the District and that there were things Congress could do to help achieve Trump’s goals of making the city safer and cleaner. Bowser said lawmakers could approve more funding to hire additional law enforcement officers, help with homeless services and accelerate economic development opportunities like the new stadium for the Commanders football team.
Mendelson noted the Council had recently passed legislation to strengthen the District’s own law enforcement capabilities, such as implementing harsher penalties for some violent crimes and making it easier to prosecute car-jackings.
Republicans have done none of those things, even as they are engaging in a larger conversation about how to crack down on crime in major, Democratic-controlled cities across the country. Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) said Thursday that Trump was “using DC as a test kitchen for all of the horrible policies that they’re cooking up.”
Democrats also pointed out that violent crime in D.C. reached a 30-year low last year.
GOP members of the panel, however, were unmoved, and defended their campaign to rewrite local laws by arguing D.C. was a unique jurisdiction. Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) also said the District’s elected officials were out of touch with the majority of Americans: “We are constantly at odds with the leadership of D.C., as a body,” he said.
At times, the exchanges between committee Republicans and the D.C. officials grew tense.
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) brought up the $1 billion in locally raised funding Congress did not allow D.C. to access for fiscal year 2025 — and, if Congress gave it back to the District, would Bowser commit to spending all of it on hiring more police officers.
Bowser replied that the money would be used, primarily, to boost spending that the District was forced to cut. Foxx demanded a yes or no answer to her question.
“We want the money because it was approved by this Congress, and it’s our money,” Bowser said, to which Foxx said she interpreted that as a “no.”
House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.), who has worked with Bowser in the past and been an advocate for restoring D.C. its budget shortfall, acknowledged that the mayor was “in a very difficult position.”
“You’re doing a good job in a tough position,” he said.
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