Youth Poisoning Protection Act

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I start by humbly suggesting that the majority needs someone new working on legislative acronyms for these messaging bills. This is the DC CRIMES Act, which stands for the D.C. Criminal Reforms to Immediately Make Everyone Safe Act of 2024.

``Immediately make everyone safe.'' That doesn't sound like legislation. It sounds like a Penn & Teller magic trick to me.

If the gentleman from Florida can actually immediately make everyone safe, the gentleman should not only be Donald Trump's running mate, as I keep hearing about, but the gentleman should be the Mayor of the District of Columbia.

The D.C. Criminal Reforms to Immediately Make Everyone Safe Act is the fourth bill that the majority has brought to the floor to vilify, heckle, and micromanage the elected Mayor and Council of the District of Columbia on the appalling conceit that the distinguished Members of the Republican Conference from Florida or Kentucky or Arizona care more about public safety and public welfare in Washington, D.C., than do the 700,000 people who

live there and their elected officials on the D.C. Council and the Mayor.

This one is even more sweeping and radical than their prior bills. It doesn't simply overturn one specific current D.C. law. It permanently strips D.C. of authority over any of its criminal laws, making this legislation, perhaps inadvertently, I concede, the largest proposed rollback of D.C.'s authority to govern itself in nearly 30 years.

Our colleagues may be shocked to learn during this debate what exactly it is they are being asked to vote for today. At the Rules Committee meeting yesterday, I asked the Republican Members whether they understood what this bill actually does if you take the time to read the language. None of them seemed to know.

Let me explain. The bill amends the D.C. Home Rule Act to say that the D.C. Council may not ``enact any act, resolution, or rule to change any criminal . . . sentence in effect on the date of the enactment of the DC CRIMES Act of 2024.''

In other words, if this bill becomes law, the D.C. Council could never increase criminal penalties again without Congress acting first, nor could it create any new criminal offenses at all.

This is their big tough-on-crime package the majority offers the Congress: No increases in criminal sentences indefinitely in the District of Columbia, and no new offenses can be passed at all.

Say the D.C. Council wanted to create a new criminal offense for directing an organized retail theft ring. Mr. Donalds' bill would prevent them from doing it.

Say D.C. wanted to make it a crime to possess a firearm with a removed or altered or mutilated serial number. Under Mr. Donalds' bill, they would be barred from doing so.

In fact, that is precisely what D.C. just did a few months ago. My Republican colleagues seem blissfully oblivious to the fact that, earlier this year, responding to the spike in crime occurring across America--not just in Washington, D.C., of course--the D.C. Council passed a 63-page law called the Secure DC Omnibus Emergency Amendment Act of 2024, which dramatically increased criminal penalties for nine different crimes and created six new criminal offenses.

The D.C. bill, which was passed unanimously by the council and signed into law by the Mayor, does what Republicans have so eloquently been orating about on the floor. It increased criminal penalties, including for gun crimes, violence in parks, violence committed against vulnerable people, and violence committed against rideshare drivers, Metro drivers, and transit workers.

The Secure DC Omnibus Emergency Amendment Act also created a host of new offenses, including directing a retail theft ring, strangulation, firing bullets in public, possessing a firearm with a removed or altered serial number, and unlawful discarding of firearms or ammunition.

They addressed the actual problems that they are experiencing in their city, something our colleagues seriously know nothing about and don't care about. If Mr. Donalds' bill had actually been law at the time, the D.C. Council would have been barred from enacting all of these tough-on-crime penalties altogether, and they will be barred in the future from responding to the kinds of spikes in crime that they experience.

Amazingly, the gentleman proposes this naked power grab against Washington, denying them the crime-fighting tools they need, despite the fact that they have done a good job and total crime in D.C. is down 16 percent in 2024 compared to the same period last year, which was conceded by the Republicans in the Rules Committee yesterday.

There has been a 26-percent reduction in violent crime in 2024, which they conceded in the Rules Committee yesterday, and a 22-percent reduction in homicides.

In other words, local democracy works. Let the local governments respond to the problems they are having, but our colleagues insist that crime is still spiking in D.C., despite the evidence to the contrary.

What is their big tough-on-crime solution? The bold solution Republicans offer us to combat crime in the Nation's Capital is to prohibit the D.C. Council from ever increasing any criminal penalties and blocking the D.C. Council from ever creating any new crimes.

If that is not what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle intend to do, then I think my colleagues need to go back and try again with some new legislation.

In any event, for my Republican colleagues who love to castigate the people of D.C., who I concede voted more than 90 percent against Donald Trump in the last election, I would respectfully suggest that the majority considers the following fact: D.C. has higher maximum criminal penalties than many Republican States do. Let's compare.

The maximum penalty for armed robbery in D.C. is 30 years. In Kentucky, represented by the chairman of the Oversight Committee, the maximum is 20 years, 50 percent less. In North Dakota, it is 10 years, or 66 percent less.

In D.C., criminals can receive a 40-year sentence for armed carjacking. In Kentucky, represented by the chairman of the Oversight Committee, carjacking is not a separate independent offense. You have to charge somebody with armed robbery, but even then, you can only get half the sentence you can get in D.C. for carjacking.

Despite all of the fine election-year rhetoric we have heard, there is something profoundly antithetical to our system of government in what the gentleman is proposing. If you read the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson set forth a bill of particulars against King George and the Parliament, and one of the central allegations of it was that they were denying the colonists the right to define criminal offenses for themselves. People over in England were dictating to people in our country what the criminal offenses should be, and that is like, with all due respect, the gentleman from Florida dictating to the people in Washington, D.C., how they should order their affairs when it comes to the criminal law.

Jefferson would have understood very well the situation that we are in, and our friends in Washington, 713,000 taxpaying, draftable U.S. citizens, have petitioned for statehood because they no longer want to be kicked around by other people's Representatives. They want to have an equal say in this body and an equal say in the U.S. Senate. They don't want other people's Representatives telling them that they can't pass the criminal offenses or the increased criminal sentences that they want for their crimes.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, the distinguished gentleman from Arizona invites us to believe that the people of Washington, D.C., don't want to respond to spikes in crime in their own city. It is only in response to hearings called by Republican Members of Congress. I think that is an affront to our fellow citizens who obviously care deeply about what is going on in their own city, and I daresay a lot more than those of us who represent other jurisdictions, because we care principally about the places that we represent.

Mr. Speaker, I will say before yielding to my friend from the District of Columbia that you don't have to look like a monarch or a tyrant to act like a monarch or a tyrant.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton), the distinguished, nonvoting delegate.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Let's see, no one on the other side has contradicted the plain, commonsense interpretation of this bill, which is that the District of Columbia Council will now be disabled from ever increasing a criminal penalty again, a criminal sentence again, and the District of Columbia Council will never be able to create a new criminal offense like the one they just created for running a retail theft ring, which has become a problem across the country in a lot of places. A lot of States have legislated on that. I know Maryland has legislated on that.

I am just wondering whether anyone on that side would yield for a question whether this is the deliberate intention of this legislation or it is just a mistake or whether they don't accept that plain, commonsense reading of the language of the bill because we are voting on something far more drastic and sweeping than what was represented by the sponsor's original statement.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Bishop), momentarily, so that he can answer my question.

Are we interpreting it properly?

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Before the gentleman leaves the Chamber, I thought I might note, I am going to give him some examples, some anecdotes and data since he appears to be legislating by vignette: In Summerville, South Carolina, last week there was a severe armed carjacking by three teenage suspects. In April, a man wanted for murder in Rock Hill was captured following another carjacking at a Huntersville QuikTrip.

I could give you a dozen of those. I don't think that the answer to any of that would be to disenfranchise the people of South Carolina or to have Congress usurp the State legislative authority or the local authority there.

My friend from Florida describes the District of Columbia as a Federal enclave, which of course it is not. A Federal enclave is a Federal property or land, like in Rockville, Maryland, which is my district, where we have the NIH. That is a Federal enclave.

This is the District constituting the seat of government set forth in Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 of the Constitution.

Now, both of my friends over there say, well, we are going to take just a small step in the right direction.

How is it the right direction to deprive the people of the District of Columbia the power to have control over their own criminal sentencing, including the power to increase criminal sentences? If they had passed this legislation at the beginning of the year, they would have foreclosed the ability of the District of Columbia to increase criminal penalties across the board on a whole range of offenses and perhaps even to create new criminal offenses in the District.

The gentleman from South Carolina lectured the people of Washington, D.C., about criminal incidents taking place here, and of course there are criminal incidents taking place also in South Carolina in the exact same way.

However, how about something that took place even closer to home? How about the violent mob insurrection where a mob incited by the ex- President violently assaulted Capitol Police officers and Metropolitan Police Department officers who were forced to deploy to the Capitol, and nearly 150 of them ended up brutalized, wounded, and hospitalized after being hit over the head or in the chest or stabbed or speared by steel pipes, Confederate battle flags, Trump flags, and American flags, shamefully?

Yet, we have the ex-President and a number of people who are his sycophants over on that side of the aisle describing people who are in jail for that, a majority of them having pled guilty

for those offenses, the others convicted after due process of law, calling those people hostages.

A hostage is someone who has been illegally abducted by a terrorist or criminal entity, like Hamas, and held for a financial or political ransom. Yet, shamefully, there are people on that side of the aisle who call the prisoners who have been convicted after having been given every aspect of American due process and right to counsel, they are calling them hostages or political prisoners, like Alexei Navalny or Nelson Mandela. That is what they have come to.

They want to denounce a criminal event that happened six blocks away. What about the massive criminal event, the most massive criminal event in the history of the Nation's Capital that came right into this Chamber, forcing the Senators and Representatives to flee, and they won't say a word about it. Yet, they get up and they denounce lawlessness, and they won't even denounce lawlessness that comes right into the Congress and the Capitol of the United States.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank the gentleman for pointing out that I accurately cited the statistics for all of the declines in crime and violent crime and homicides in the District of Columbia in 2024.

Alas, I do have to correct my friend in his history because there might be some students watching this. Thomas Jefferson never signed the Constitution. He was, of course, on a diplomatic mission when the Constitution was being signed in Philadelphia, but he did write the Declaration of Independence.

The other side says, bizarrely, that the District of Columbia Council and the Mayor should be denied the authority to increase criminal sentences forthwith because they have shown no inclination to increase criminal sentences.

Leaving aside the absolute illogic of the argument, it is also false because the District of Columbia in the secure D.C. act, passed just 2 months ago, increased criminal sentences across the board, which I am afraid my friends were completely oblivious to when they started this legislation. They weren't aware of it.

The people who claim to be speaking for the populous of Washington, D.C., didn't know that the Council had just acted to dramatically increase criminal penalties in the city. They denied them the right to further increase criminal penalties in the city because they say they haven't shown any inclination to do so which, of course, makes no sense and is also completely false.

All of this is pure political theater. It is bad political theater. Somebody decided a long time ago that it works for people who would never try to kick around their own State legislatures, their own county councils, or their own city councils to kick around the people of Washington, D.C.

My friends think that they have scored some kind of huge rhetorical coup, pointing out Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 of the Constitution, which indeed says that Congress shall exercise exclusive legislation over the District, constituting the seat of government from land that is ceded by various States.

Nobody on this side of the aisle, including the distinguished gentlewoman from the District of Columbia, has denied that for a second.

What we have said is this is a massive assault on home rule, and it is also an embarrassing one because it cuts completely against all of the rhetoric that we are hearing from our colleagues across the aisle.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I think we have made some progress in this conversation because a plain reading of the distinguished gentleman from Florida's legislation indicates that what he is telling the District of Columbia is you may never increase criminal penalties again. The only time there can be an increase in criminal penalties in the District of Columbia is if Congress does it.

Unfortunately, this Congress has a hard time even keeping a Speaker in place without them trying to vacate the chair and topple the Speaker.

This Congress, as the whole country knows, has been absolute chaos and dysfunction and disorganization from the beginning.

I don't blame the people from Washington, D.C., who sent us these letters; the Mayor, the Council, and the Attorney General of D.C. saying thanks, but no thanks. We will take it from here.

The people in D.C. are perfectly able to decide what criminal offenses they need in the District of Columbia and how the sentences should be set and fixed.

They have courts in the District of Columbia, they have a legislature, the Council for the District of Columbia, which is elected from their eight wards and four at-large members and the chairman of the Council, and they have a Mayor. They have advisory neighborhood commissions.

I wonder if any of my colleagues over there are active in any of the wards or advisory neighborhood commissions where they live. I tend to doubt it.

The people of D.C., I understand from Congresswoman Norton, are actually involved in the governance of their city and the management of their local affairs.

Yet, in this totally ham-handed and almost comically dysfunctional attempt to score points against D.C., they come up with legislation which says D.C. can never increase criminal penalties, again, when they are accusing D.C. of being too soft on crime, despite the fact that we are able to show that D.C. has tougher criminal sentences than many of the States represented by the Members who have been speaking about this over the last several days.

All of it feels a lot, to me, like a silly election-year stunt. I don't think anyone thinks that this is serious legislation, but I am glad at least that the other side has conceded that the bill means what it says.

They want to strip the District of Columbia of any power to increase criminal sentences in their city. I simply think that that is a terrible form of public policy and is a major inroad against home rule over the last several decades when, in fact, what we should be doing is giving the people of D.C. greater political self-government and giving them the rights to equal representation which, of course, was the aforementioned Jefferson's ideal for the country.

If you go back and read the Northwest Ordinance, he thought that every part of the country would eventually attain a level of political equality by admission to Statehood through Article IV of the Constitution.

That is the spirit of the Constitution, not kicking around people, our fellow citizens, because we think we have more power than them, and we can score some political points off them.

Why don't we have a hearing about Statehood for the District of Columbia, and let's keep the engines of democracy, freedom, and political equality in the country moving.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1227, I call up the bill (H.R. 7530) to limit youth offender status in the District of Columbia to individuals 18 years of age or younger, to direct the Attorney General of the District of Columbia to establish and operate a publicly accessible website containing updated statistics on juvenile crime in the District of Columbia, to amend the District of Columbia Home Rule Act to prohibit the Council of the District of Columbia from enacting changes to existing criminal liability sentences, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the measure under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 7530, the DC CRIMES Act.

The Committee on Oversight and Accountability has held three hearings with D.C. officials. Many members of the committee have met privately with various D.C. officials to discuss the crime crisis in our Nation's Capital.

Throughout this work, one thing has been made abundantly clear: The progressive policies of the District of Columbia City Council are simply not working.

Last year, the Congress successfully blocked the D.C. Council's Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022 by passing the bipartisan H.J. Res. 26, the first law passed by the 118th Congress. That was a great first step toward addressing the rising crime in D.C., but that only kept the problem from getting much worse.

The bill we are considering today expands upon that work. The DC CRIMES Act overturns targeted portions of the D.C. Council's Youth Rehabilitation Act by amending the definition of a youth offender from a person under the age of 25 to under the age of 18.

Let me restate: The DC CRIMES Act overturns the targeted portions of the D.C. Council's Youth Rehabilitation Act by amending the definition of a youth offender from somebody under the age of 25 to under the age of 18.

Currently, D.C. Code allows a criminal under the age of 25 to be given the same leniency that is afforded to minors. This bill requires that we treat adult criminals as adults like the rest of the country does.

As juvenile crime soars throughout the District, the bill also requires the D.C. attorney general to create a publicly available website that tracks juvenile crime data. This data will inform Congress, the District's elected officials, the Metropolitan Police Department, the public, and others about the severity of juvenile crime in the District of Columbia.

Finally, the bill prohibits the D.C. Council from amending its sentencing and criminal liability laws, locking into place the current D.C. criminal law and leaving Congress as the sole authority to amend such laws in the future.

The D.C. Council would have succeeded in implementing radical soft- on-crime policies if it were not for the bipartisan effort of this Congress to disapprove of the D.C. Council's legislation. Even Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser vetoed the progressive criminal reform package, only for her veto to be overturned by the D.C. City Council.

The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is committed to its constitutional responsibility to oversee the District of Columbia. We cannot allow further pro-crime policies to be put into place while this crisis continues.

Citizens of D.C. and the visitors of our Nation's Capital deserve to feel safe. This bill is a great step toward ensuring our Capital City is going to be safe.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I always appreciate the fact that the ranking member thinks so much about my future. What I think about these days are actually the people of Washington, D.C., and all the people who come to visit the Nation's Capital.

I also find it very interesting that, yes, the D.C. City Council finally did something on March 11 after the Oversight Committee started working on solutions because the District of Columbia City Council refused to actually address the crime issues in D.C. until very recently. That is important for people to understand.

Secondarily, we do have a constitutional obligation to the District of Columbia. The ranking member is well aware of that. Congress does have the authority to execute that authority if the council will not do it. They have refused until very recently, and so Congress is going to assert its authority to make sure that we try to secure the District to the best of our ability.

Last thing, to my friend on the other side of the aisle, I doubt anybody will confuse me with King George. I don't think we look alike. With that being said, it is very different when you are talking about a far-off capital across the ocean versus the Nation's Capital sitting in the Federal enclave, which is the District of Columbia. Congress has a responsibility to the District, and Congress should assert that authority with this language.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs).

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to reassert that the Constitution is clear on this matter, that Congress does have responsibilities and that the District of Columbia is under the jurisdiction of the United States Congress. That has been clear since the beginning of the Republic.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Burchett).

Mr. Speaker, could you please advise on how much time is remaining.

Mr. Speaker, the only thing I would say in response to the gentleman from Maryland is that the D.C. Council has had ample opportunity to fix these issues in D.C., and they have refused until very recently, so it is just a matter of simple logic that unless Congress actually decides to use its authority, what would make us think that the D.C. Council will actually act in the interests of the citizens of the District?

The citizens of the District, I am quite sure, would love to have a safe city. The issue is that the Council has not acted toward actually having a safe city, and that is a significant problem for the Federal enclave because, I will state again, D.C. is a Federal enclave. Article I, Section 8, Clause 17, the Federal enclave is under the jurisdiction of the United States Congress, and we are acting under this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Timmons.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from South Carolina.

Mr. Speaker, I find that we are at this point in the debate where my friend from Maryland has lost the debate because now he is going back talking about other things that are not about the merits of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Bishop).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I am prepared to close. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. The District of Columbia thinks that you are to be tried as a minor if you are 23 years of age. Nowhere else in the United States does that exist--nowhere--except in the District of Columbia. The District of Columbia Council has been derelict in its duty to actually provide for safety and security for the residents of the District of Columbia and the 19 million-plus Americans who come to the Federal enclave to visit the Nation's Capital.

For all the talk of political points that have been made in this debate, that has only come from my friend on the other side of the aisle.

He has talked about everything from President Trump to political talking points to political futures. He has talked very little about the reality that exists here in the Nation's Capital.

It doesn't take much for anybody to just see, whether it is on the nightly news, or frankly, just walking down the streets somewhere in the District of Columbia that something has gone very, very wrong.

Even here in this very building, Members and their staffs have experienced that. Our colleague from Minnesota (Ms. Craig) was assaulted in an elevator in her own apartment building.

Our colleague on the other side of this building, Senator Paul, his staffer was stabbed when walking home from work.

The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Cuellar), a Democrat Member of this Chamber, he was robbed and carjacked with guns pointed at his head blocks away from the United States Capitol.

You see, Mr. Speaker, these are not political talking points. This is real life. It is easy for the Members to come in and out of this building when we have security apparatus around us every single day but not take seriously what is happening in the streets of the Nation's Capital. This legislation takes that seriously.

I will end with this: It is not a time for election-year stunts. I agree with that 100 percent, which is why this legislation is about having structural reforms to what has happened in the District of Columbia.

This is why the age for being tried as a minor is being decreased to under the age of 18, which mirrors what happens in every other part of the United States and should also occur here in the Nation's Capital.

This is a good piece of legislation. I encourage Members on both sides of the aisle to vote for this. We have a responsibility to provide for a safe Washington, D.C., that the citizens can enjoy and that the people of the United States can enjoy.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield his time to me? I would be glad to take that question.

In part yes; in part no. That is to say, as the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia just read the section, it prohibits the Council from enacting changes to existing criminal liability sentences.

It does not prevent the D.C. Council from creating new crimes, like an organized retail crime act. It would prevent them from increasing sentences-- Mr.

RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time. As I understand the answer, the District of Columbia would not be able to increase the penalty for rape or the penalty for murder or the penalty for child sex abuse.

We might have a difference as to your second conclusion because, of course, it is increasing a criminal sentence to create a criminal sentence or offense where it didn't exist in the first place.

In any event, you are creating grave constitutional doubt about new criminal offenses that might be created in the District of Columbia with this legislation.

In any event, the first part is bad enough. The point is that, how is it tough on crime to say that the District of Columbia, as the gentleman just conceded, cannot increase criminal penalties if it chooses to in response to local circumstances?

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I was about to comment that sooner or later you had to expect that the debate would be a rant about Donald Trump.

Let's get back to the subject matter at hand perhaps. To clarify, since the point has been raised repeatedly and continues to be repeated, here is what the D.C. Council would be prohibited from doing: enact any act, resolution, or rule to change any criminal liability sentence in effect on the date of the enactment of the DC CRIMES Act of 2024.

Nothing would keep the D.C. Council from creating new crimes. Nothing whatsoever. In fact, they would not be able to increase crime sentences, existing sentences for crimes, but they sure haven't shown any inclination whatsoever to do that.

The law professor from Maryland also made another elementary mistake in his recitation of the facts. As they said in law school, you have got to know the facts. He said that ``crime is down 16 percent in the past year in D.C.''

Look a little closer. Go to the website MPDC.DC.gov. That is the website for the Metropolitan Police Department. That reduction in crime that was cited, that is only for this year to date. Go look at last year, 2023. In that situation: homicide, up 35 percent; robbery, up 67 percent; violent crime total, up 39 percent, et cetera. Across the board, all crime totaled up 26 percent, just last year.

I know it is out of memory now because we are into the first few months of the next year, but it hasn't gone away. The victims haven't gone away.

Here is what the gentleman from Maryland said, the law professor, that Thomas Jefferson would understand, but the Constitution that Thomas Jefferson signed said: ``[The Congress shall have power . . . ] to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding 10 miles square) as may, by cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all places purchased . . . ''

That is pretty clear. It is not only the question of the interests of the roughly 700,000 D.C. citizens; it is the 19 million Americans who come to the seat of government every year and are threatened by the recklessness of the D.C. Council.

A moment's refresher about how we got to this place: The D.C. Council's radical rewrite of the entire criminal law that was reversed by H.J. Res. 26, which 31 Democrats voted to disapprove along with the majority, two Democrats from my home State, and eight Democrats couldn't bring themselves to vote. The rest of the extreme Democrats voted to stay out of the way, let them do what they wanted to.

Mr. Speaker, the Senate voted to disapprove, 81-14, and the President of the United States, Joe Biden, faithful Democrat, signed the legislation even though many extreme Democrats supported the D.C. Council's reckless action.

Then the other matter, H.J. Res. 42, to disapprove the ``Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act of 2022,'' which Mayor Bowser also vetoed, and they overrode her veto.

They did all kinds of stuff to leave police officers at the tender mercies. They require juries to consider if officers consulted mental health, behavioral health, or social workers before using deadly force; imposed approval hurdles for the use of riot gear and nonlethal munitions necessary to protect officers; eliminated officers and union representatives from police complaint boards, restricted officers from using body cam footage in preparing reports, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

It is sheer recklessness, and it should be changed, and the way to change it is for Congress to take back the authority over criminal sentencing.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding to me.

Before I get into the nub, I will just respond to a couple things.

The baseline, the reason that you come down 16 percent and still have rabid crime is because you were so high the years before, and they were. Washington, D.C., was. We know it; you know it; everybody knows it.

I would also suggest that my friend from Florida is correct. The D.C. Council had not taken action that they needed to take. In fact, they had gone the other way and only recently were converted after Congress put pressure on them to make changes. By the way, that was bipartisan pressure, but somehow, we are told that is improper now.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the bill, H.R. 7530, the DC CRIMES Act, which takes necessary steps to improve public safety in our Nation's Capital for its residents and for our constituents.

As violent crime skyrockets and D.C. police officer ranks continue to dwindle, the D.C. Council continues to push progressive policies that make everyone in D.C. unsafe. Their inaction has endangered residents of and visitors to our Nation's Capital, which is why in 2022, when the D.C. Council passed the Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022, I think we were all shocked.

The bill eliminated mandatory minimum sentences for all crimes except first-degree murder, eliminated life sentences, and reduced maximum penalties for violent crimes.

What whipsawed them back in just about an 18-month period? I suggest to you, respectfully, that it was because Congress was exercising its constitutional oversight authority over the District of Columbia, and that persuaded the council that they were in the eye and being watched by Congress. Their residents were also unhappy.

I am going to have to suggest, respectfully, that it wasn't the D.C. Council responding to crime across America and not just in D.C., which is an ironic argument to make, quite frankly, when you are claiming that Congress has no authority, when we have constitutional authority to oversee the actions of D.C. The reality is, the council was responding to oversight that is authorized by the Constitution.

Congress responded by blocking the reckless D.C. act from taking effect by advancing the bipartisan H.J. Res. 26 into law. The response from the D.C. Council was to then pass another bill, the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act, which targeted D.C. Metropolitan Police Department officers and their ability to combat rising crime.

Congress attempted to block this act with H.J. Res. 42, but President Biden vetoed the bipartisan disapproval resolution, ensuring D.C.'s antipolice reforms went into effect.

The D.C. Metropolitan Police Department has lost over 1,200 members since 2020 and staffing remains at the lowest level in 50 years, with officers often citing the D.C. Council's restrictive laws as their reasons for leaving. In a hearing last year, former D.C. Police Chief Contee noted that MPD needed an additional 800 officers to be fully staffed.

As a result of the council's continued soft-on-crime agenda, crime in D.C. has increased 30 percent in 2023 compared to the previous year.

Homicides were up 29 percent over 2022 and homicides doubled since 2012, which is why, when my colleague across the aisle begins saying they are down 16 percent in 2024, why do you think that is? It is because you had hit records in 2023 and now you are beginning to take this seriously because Congress is acting.

Violent crime increased by 37 percent from 2022 to 2023, with robberies rising 65 percent.

Motor vehicle thefts increased by 107 percent in 2023 compared to 2022.

Congressman Donalds' bill ensures that Congress is fulfilling its constitutional responsibilities to oversee the district by lowering D.C.'s definition of youth to 18 and prohibiting D.C. from enacting new soft-on-crime sentencing changes in the future, which they no doubt will once Congress averts its eye from D.C.

However, if we enact Congressman Donalds' bill, they will not be able to revert to their soft-on-crime ways, which has made D.C. unsafe for people, the millions of people who want to come and visit here and for the residents of this city.

Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, D.C. is the modern-day Rome, a bastion of freedom for the world to see, and the front door of our great Nation. In my few short years serving the Fourth District of South Carolina in Congress, I have watched a once proud city succumb to violent crime, vagrancy, and fall into lawlessness.

There are many factors at play here, but the bottom line is this: I want to, in good faith, tell parents from my district that it is safe for the kids to come visit the Nation's Capital on their school trip. Right now, I can't do that. I actually do the exact opposite when people come to my office. I tell them that D.C. is not safe; they should take Ubers.

I have had time and time again where I have had people tell me that they have had serious issues. Just, I guess it was, a month ago, my commanding officer in the Air Force was staying in the Navy Yard. I told him not to walk to dinner. He did.

I called him at 6:30 in the morning, and I said: I bet you walked to dinner.

He said: You are right. I am about to go for a run.

I said: Well, you can't because there is an active shooter outside your building.

That was a month ago.

All this after years of vilifying and defunding the police, the District's violent crime and property theft have never been more blatant. D.C. criminals have never acted so brazenly and with more perceived impunity than I have witnessed in my years in Washington.

In fact, just today, at 1:40 this afternoon--and let me reiterate, this was 3 hours ago and in broad daylight--there was a stabbing just blocks away; a stabbing. Twelve hours before that there was an armed carjacking a few blocks north of there. The last 24 hours, we know how bad it is here, we were just on the GW campus where the mayor refused to enforce the rule of law. There were 250 people trespassing on the yard. The president of the university begged for the city to enforce the rule of law, and they didn't for 10 days. It required an Oversight hearing for her to actually do her job, to tell the MPD to arrest people.

I mean, all of this on top of the fact that an Uber driver that fled Afghanistan--and he was driving Uber Eats--a bunch of children under the age of 20 but over the age of 15 stole his car and killed him. They are going to get out of jail within a year or two, and they are going to have no criminal history.

Are we serious right now? So, yes, the D.C. Council has lost the faith of this institution.

Just this Congress, three Members have been held at gunpoint or assaulted, three Members of Congress in the last 18 months. This is out of control.

This is a small step in the right direction, but we have to respect the rule of law. We have to respect law enforcement, and we have to fund law enforcement. We should have 3,000 law enforcement officers in Washington, D.C. You are going to be down to 1,500 here shortly because of the way that the city council treats law enforcement. It is unacceptable.

These changes are just mere steps in the right direction. A 25-year- old is not a child. I can promise you this, in South Carolina, if a 16- year-old, a group of 16-year-olds killed somebody, they are going to be in prison for a while. They are going to be in prison for quite a while. The fact that they are not is exactly why we are having to do this right now.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate D.C.'s desire to have self- rule, but there are responsibilities that come along with that. It seems that our Nation is a Nation in decline because of the lawlessness in Washington, D.C., and we have to get back on track. This is a step in the right direction.

I thank my friend from Florida for proposing this legislation. I encourage all of my colleagues to support it.