With House Republicans now attempting to influence the city’s elections and Democratic wildcard Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia voting with the GOP on undoing the criminal code change, it has been another busy week on the collision course between Congress and local D.C.
Why it matters: Congress is exercising greater control over the District of Columbia than in prior years, which has irked local officials and may put President Biden in a difficult decision on whether to veto bipartisan legislation.
Driving the news: As Capitol Hill is a hot topic right now, I consulted Axios Congress reporter Andrew Solender, who had just broken the story that a little-known House committee wanted to look into whether D.C. and other jurisdictions used federal funding to facilitate non-citizen voting.Bryan Steil, a Republican representative from Wisconsin, said on Tuesday that House must fulfill its constitutional mandate over Washington, D.C., by putting in place crucial measures to ensure election integrity in the wake of years of shoddy election administration.
Steil’s plans are unclear, and his office declined our request for comment. Nonetheless, it subtly suggests more micromanagement of the District.
Quick catch-up Elections are in the spotlight after the House voted last month to reverse a D.C. law enabling non-citizen residents to vote in municipal elections.
The mystery: According to the D.C. Council, the mandatory 30-day congressional review time was completed last week, and the bill is now officially a law. Nevertheless, the Senate parliamentarian disputes the methodology used to calculate those days, claiming that the Senate has until March 14 to make a decision.Meanwhile, on the crime front, Tennessee Republican Sen. Bill Hagerty’s office tells me he plans to advance a resolution next week, possibly next Tuesday or Wednesday, overturning the city’s criminal code reform. It just needs a simple majority vote.
Manchin told CNN he would “vote to rescind” the reform, meaning that the Senate could pass the resolution with just Manchin and 49 Republicans — if Democratic Sen. John Fetterman remains hospitalized, as DCist notes. But it’s also very possible more moderates like Democratic Sen. Jon Tester join Manchin, forcing Biden to weigh his first veto.
Between the lines: The D.C. interventions are elevating the profiles of Republicans like Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde — who wants to overturn all local home rule — and most recently Hagerty, who after a career in private equity and as Trump’s ambassador to Japan became a senator in 2021, once considered voting against certifying Biden’s election win.
