House Republicans, with key Dem support, took aim at D.C. on Tuesday

A pair of bills backing Trump's attack on D.C. passed the House. Both would restrict D.C.'s self-governance and more harshly punish criminal acts of young people.

Photo by Bernd 📷 Dittrich on Unsplash

On Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed two bills to support President Donald Trump’s attack on Washington, D.C.’s ability to govern itself.

Both passed with support from every Republican voting aside from Rep. Thomas Massie, but an alarming — and pivotal — number of House Democrats voted for one of the bills and a lesser number for the second.

And though the bills face an uphill climb in the Senate, do not forget that two-thirds of Senate Democrats voted to reject D.C.’s criminal code revisions in 2023 — the first time an act of D.C. Council had been disapproved by Congress since 1991.

Hopefully, it will be different this time, in this moment, and with these bills. It is important that it is — not just for D.C. but for all of the nation, given Trump’s stated aims at expansive, aggressive, and often illegal intrusion into state and local governance everywhere.

The first bill, moronically named the “DC Criminal Reforms to Immediately Make Everyone Safe Act“ — or DC CRIMES Act — passed on a 240-179 vote. Now, that sounds lopsided, so let’s look at the numbers:

As you can see, 31 Democrats joined the Republicans in voting yes.

In short, had all of the Democrats voted no (along with Massie), the vote would have been 209-210.

It would have failed.

Now, to be clear, there were 9 Republicans and 4 Democrats not voting, so that math is not absolute. (The House currently has 432 members.) The Republicans could have gotten more members to vote, and so on.

But, as a factual matter, as to votes cast, the Democrats voting yes were pivotal to the bill’s passage on Tuesday.

So, what did they vote for?

The bill purports to do a few things, although it is not, I don’t believe, the most carefully drafted piece of legislation.

In focusing on Trump’s obsession with “youth crime,” the bill would reduce “youth offender” status from 24 to 18, restricting D.C. from resolving cases involving individuals between 18 and 24 by using less punitive measures:

Relatedly, in a second portion of the bill, it purports to reinstate mandatory-minimum sentences for youth offenders. The paragraph it is striking — (2) — currently reads: “Notwithstanding any other law, the court may, in its discretion, issue a sentence less than any mandatory-minimum term otherwise required by law.“

Although a small point, I would like to note that the sloppy drafting here technically means that Section 24–903 of the D.C. Code would have a section “(b)” and a section “(b)(2).” There would be no “(b)(1).”

And though “youth crime“ has been the focus of much of Trump’s fear-based rhetoric — and is the focus of the second bill — one of the most alarming parts of the bill is lobbed on to the bottom:

Yes, you read that right. This bill would lock D.C. sentencing laws in amber. Only Congress could change D.C.’s criminal liability sentences. Ironically, it would mean that D.C. Council could not increase criminal sentences.

Finally, the bill would order the creation of a D.C. juvenile crime statistics website.

It is, I think the first time that the Republicans in 2025 actually want more government data available to the public. Of course, it is limited to one topic of interest to them and one city being targeted by the president.

The second bill, which should be called the “Jeanine Pirro Really, Really Wants To Put Kids In Prison Act,” would allow 14-year-old children to be tried as adults in D.C.

It would alter portions of two D.C. laws that limit when and at what age certain children can be tried as an adult by reducing the age to 14 in five instances throughout the two laws.

In another moment of questionable drafting, the directive in Section 1(b)(3) of the bill is (at least) insufficiently clear, as “eighteen” is used twice in the paragraph in question. This is a provision saying that the D.C. Attorney General can request a transfer for criminal (adult) prosecution where:

This provision, as currently worded, seems intended to address the situation where a person has turned 18 but is alleged to have committed acts before having turned 18 and the prosecutor wants to seek adult charges. One could question that, but I at least understand it. The change — depending on which “eighteen” becomes “fourteen,” or whether both do — could either create confusion, a gap in coverage, or a broad expansion of new child-as-adult prosecutions for any “delinquent” act from anyone 14 or older. (I am afraid the intention is that last possibility.)

In any event, the passage of this bill — a 225-203 vote — was closer:

But, eight Democrats still joined the Republicans in voting yes to have 14-year-old children tried as adults, as Massie again joined the rest of the Democrats in voting no.

All eight of those Democrats — Reps. Henry Cuellar, Donald Davis, Laura Gillen, Jared Gold, Susie Lee, Dave Min, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, and Eugene Vindman — had voted yes on the other bill as well.

Trump’s continued military deployment against D.C. means that Tuesday’s votes against D.C.’s sovereignty were taken — quite literally — as armed soldiers strolled D.C.’s streets.