House members voted Thursday to exclude non-citizens, including illegal immigrants, from participating in D.C. municipal elections.
When the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act came up for a vote in the District of Columbia Council in 2022, 42 Democrats joined the Republican majority and voted against it.
The House also passed a resolution on Thursday that would bar the District of Columbia from enacting new criminal laws.
Kentucky Republican and Oversight Committee chairman James Comer said, “Today the House took the first step to prevent two of the D.C. Council’s erroneous and damaging policies from entering into law.” A surge in crime and a smaller voice in the government are inevitable outcomes of this ill-conceived idea.
Any legislation passed by the D.C. Council is subject to review by Congress under Home Rule.
Local news outlet DCist reports that noncitizens will be able to vote in the District of Columbia local elections starting in 2024. Councilmember and bill sponsor Brianne Nadeau said in a statement last year that she “championed enhancing voting rights so that those who have made the District their home have the ability to have their voices heard in our local affairs, regardless of immigration status.”
The other bill, which would modernize the District of Columbia’s criminal code, which hasn’t been updated in over a century, wouldn’t take effect until October 2025. Some people worry that the legislation may encourage criminal behavior by making it easier to be prosecuted.
The District of Columbia Council overrode a veto from Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser and passed new criminal law. In her campaign for the rule’s implementation in 2027, Bowser reportedly called for the reinstatement of maximum sentences for gun offenses and carjackings.
Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat representing the District of Columbia in Congress, denounced Republican efforts to dissolve the District of Columbia Council as “undemocratic” and “paternalistic.”
Reading from prepared remarks, Norton urged the House to uphold democratic principles by passing his D.C. statehood measure and granting residents full voting rights and legislative authority.
According to New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, “growing” support for disenfranchisement in the “overwhelmingly black city” is the result of continuing to deny D.C. statehood.
She insisted that DC policymaking was delegated to the City Council. If anyone in this chamber has a problem with it, they can just move to the District of Columbia, register to vote there, and run for office there.
Senate approval of the House’s measure passed on Thursday is crucial. The White House has already declared its disdain, and there is no assurance that the Senate will even bother to look at them.
To counter calls to declare DC the 51st state, Biden’s administration sent a statement to WJLA, a local ABC station, urging them to lobby Congress to give DC full control over its government.