D.C.’s love-hate relationship with Congress

A story a lot of major cities can relate to.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene questions D.C. Councilmember Charles Allen on his tweets about the city’s crime reform bill. (Mar. 29, 2023)

It’s tough right now to be a local politician. They’re getting harassed, threatened and face deep-seated mistrust (whether warranted or not). The rise in violent crime in many cities is exacerbating the situation. But in Washington, D.C., local appointed and elected officials not only deal with these issues within their constituency, they also have to answer to a group of people who didn’t elect them and live hundreds—sometimes thousands—of miles away. 

The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability has jurisdiction over the District of Columbia and last week members grilled local officials in a four-hour hearing. The city’s long history with this committee and its predecessor is fraught with racism and abuse of power. While D.C. is an extreme example, the dynamics between the city and its constitutional overlord might sound familiar to local officials elsewhere.

A scapegoat for the rise in crime

Violent crime this year in D.C. is up and cops are leaving the force, as is the case in most major cities. Recently, a staffer for Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) was stabbed in an attack near a Capitol Hill restaurant. And during last week’s hearing, which was about D.C.’s policing and criminal justice reform bill, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) read out a text alert she had just received about a shooting in Southeast D.C. 

The committee hauled up local officials to question them about the city’s reform bill and seize the opportunity to grandstand about “democrat-run crime-ridden cities,” as Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) put it. Clyde co-sponsored a resolution to overturn the local bill, which the committee later approved. President Biden has said he would veto the resolution if it passes Congress.

• D.C.’s Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Act: Improves public access to records for disciplinary incidents, prohibits hiring officers who have a record of misconduct, and reduces maximum sentences for some violent crimes while increasing others, among other changes.

D.C. officials enjoyed relatively little meddling over the last two years when Democrats had control of the House, but with the GOP in charge, that’s over. Republican lawmakers took the opportunity to run through their go-to criticisms of cities (schools, crime, homelessness) and demanded to know what D.C.’s local officials were going to do about it.

“To your point Mr. Mendelson, you can say what you want about how great your theaters are in Washington, you’ve got crappy schools,” Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala) shot at Council President Phil Mendelson. “Your schools are not only drop out factories, they’re inmate factories.”

The big picture: Most big cities are struggling these days with increased crime, cops quitting and remote work’s impact on downtowns. With next year being a presidential election year, last week’s hearing was a warm up for what’s to come during the campaign season. 

It’s happened before. In the 1960s Sen. Olin D. Johnston (D-S.C.) asserted D.C. crime resulted from “forced integration” and Sen. Allen Elender (D-La.) claimed the city’s status as a “cesspool of crime” proved that “Negroes cannot govern themselves.” Republicans Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon used the D.C. crime rate as a campaign issue in the 1964 and 1968 presidential elections, notes the Activist History Review, and in 1970 Congress passed the D.C. Crime Bill which curtailed civil liberties through, among other provisions, “no-knock” warrants and preventative detention.

Rooted in racism

Local governance and funding for services for D.C. residents have long been subject to the whims and moods of Congress. Put more bluntly, the city’s history is marked by racist white men forcing their ideology upon a city full of Black residents. It has created a relationship laden with historical resentment. While today’s divide is more about political parties, other cities have also had their own history of getting short-changed and being meddled with (also called preemption) by their own state legislatures.