- Most Democratic senators voted for a GOP-led resolution overruling recent changes to DC's criminal code.
- Biden reversed his position on the bill as it moved through Congress, splitting Democrats on the issue.
The US Senate on Wednesday passed a Republican-led resolution of disapproval that would strike down a recent overhaul of the criminal code in Washington, DC. President Joe Biden has said he will sign the legislation, teeing up the first time in over 30 years that the federal government has overturned a local DC law.
Just 14 Democratic senators voted against the resolution. Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia voted "present."
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the vast majority of the Democratic caucus supported the resolution, along with every Republican present.
That's despite almost every Senate Democrat supporting statehood for the District of Columbia, a status that would give the city representation in Congress and shield it from similar interventions from Congress in the future.
The Senate vote caps off what has become a messy affair for congressional Democrats.
Under federal law, Congress has the power to override changes made to local DC criminal laws within 60 days via resolutions of disapproval. After the new code was approved in January, Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia introduced the disapproval resolution in the Republican-led House.
As the measure came to a House vote last month, the Biden administration urged Democratic lawmakers to "respect the District of Columbia's autonomy to govern its own local affairs" and vote against the resolution. All but 31 Democrats did so.
But ahead of the bill's arrival in the Senate, Biden reversed course, declaring last week that he would sign the bill if the Senate passes it — avoiding potentially having to issue a presidential veto, and giving a broader swath of Senate Democrats implicit permission to support overturning the law.
Ahead of the vote, DC Council Chairman Phil Mendelson even attempted to withdraw the criminal reform legislation in an attempt to prevent a Senate vote.
—President Biden (@POTUS) March 2, 2023
The overhaul has been years in the making, and includes simplifying and updating a criminal code that was first written by Congress in 1901 and periodically amended since then.
Biden has noted that DC Mayor Muriel Bowser had originally vetoed the overhaul, and that the maximum penalty for carjackings had been lowered from 40 years to 24 years — though data from the DC Sentencing Commission shows that the average sentence for armed carjacking was 15 years between 2016 and 2020.
While most Democratic senators followed Biden's lead — or sought to avoid what could be a tough vote politically amid widespread perceptions of rising crime — several stood firm, arguing that the changes to the code were reasonable and that the debate had gone "off-the-rails," as Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut wrote on Twitter.
—Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) March 7, 2023
"If anything, this situation makes it even more important that DC gets statehood so that they can deal with these issues, take responsibility, and enact their laws," said Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts told reporters on Wednesday that the changes in the criminal code would put it "in the middle of most states, red and blue," though she declined to offer judgment on other Democratic senators' votes.
"I can't speak to other people's votes, I can only be responsible for my own," she told Insider.
Here are the 14 Democratic senators who voted against the resolution:
- Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey
- Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland
- Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois
- Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois
- Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii
- Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut
- Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon
- Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts
- Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island
- Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont (independent, but caucuses with Democrats)
- Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland
- Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts
- Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont
- Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island