Joe Biden’s decision not to veto a GOP proposal to repeal a local Washington, D.C., criminal justice reform bill surprised and bitterly disappointed many liberal members of Congress. But Republicans have been using the crime issue to whack Democrats over the last two election cycles, and many less radical Democrats are tired of being GOP punching bags on the issue.
But Biden’s reversal on repealing a criminal justice reform bill didn’t take place in a vacuum. The D.C. bill was vetoed by the District’s radical Mayor Muriel Bowser because even she knows that “Anytime there’s a policy that reduces penalties, I think it sends the wrong message.”
Congress has the power to repeal any law passed by the Washington, D.C., city council, and Republicans, eager to flex their newfound political muscle, decided to challenge a recently passed sweeping revision of the D.C. criminal code by voting to send it back to the council for a rewrite.
The huge criminal justice overhaul also eliminated most mandatory minimum sentences, reduced mandatory maximum penalties, and allowed jury trials for misdemeanors. That last bullet point would have buried an already overwhelmed D.C. court system.
But for Biden, the key to siding with Republicans and repealing the law was more about what was happening elsewhere in the country.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot lost a re-election bid this week and her police chief resigned amid voter anger over the issue. At least three Democratic senators — Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania — are expected to vote for the measure next week. They join 31 House Democrats who supported the bill, most from competitive districts.
Republicans who campaigned on crime last year — especially in New York state — gave the GOP some upset wins despite widely underperforming expectations. Among the beneficiaries: Representative George Santos, the now-embattled congressman facing an ethics investigation for a series of lies about his background who campaigned on a theme of “backing the blue.”
John McLaughlin, a GOP strategist, said voting for the new measure “saved the Democrats some more damage, but they have a long way to go to stem the crime wave in many cities, counties and states.”
Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville got Bill Clinton elected president the last time the country was beset by a violent crime epidemic.
“It shows you the power this issue has become. Look what happened in Chicago. Look what happened in San Francisco. Everywhere you turn around,” Carville said, referring to the ouster of Lightfoot and former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin in a recall election last year.
Indeed, the Democrats’ biggest problem with crime is their inability to stop shooting themselves in the head. Exhibit A:
This ain’t it. DC has a right to govern itself, like any other state or municipality. If the President supports DC statehood, he should govern like it.
Plenty of places pass laws the President may disagree with. He should respect the people’s gov of DC just as he does elsewhere. https://t.co/VXczSp8YPc
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 3, 2023
One reason many Democrats are angry is that most of them had expressed their support for the radical legislation prior to Biden’s announcement.
“Biden just hung House Democrats out to dry. It’s incompetence bordering on hilarity that they waited until scores of them walked the plank on this,” said Matt Gorman, a Republican strategist who has worked on House campaigns. “Crime is only gaining salience as an issue. It seems that Biden, as he apparently runs for reelection, is informing his party to wake up.”
In Chicago, former public schools CEO Paul Vallas got more than 33% of the vote running on a “get tough on crime” platform. The second leading vote-getter was Cook County chief Brandon Johnson. He ran on what amounted to a “defund the police” platform. He received only 20% of the vote.
Soon-to-be ex-mayor Lori Lightfoot got just 17% after having presided over the four bloodiest years in Chicago since the 1990s. There’s a message in those numbers. It remains to be seen whether Democrats can hear it.
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