D.C. House Republicans Pass Two Bills to Rein In Crime, Predictably Triggering Democrat Outrage

WASHINGTON, DC - Two bills intended to change D.C. laws on cash bail and police policy passed the House this past week by the Republican majority, Fox 5 DC reported. As expected, the legislation was met with criticism from pro-criminal Democrats. 

On Wednesday, the GOP took a step toward overturning the capital city’s lenient bail system and ending police “reform” that has served to tie the hands of police, which were passed in the post-George Floyd era. 

The first bill, the District of Columbia Cash Bail Reform Act (H.R. 5214), was introduced by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and will end D.C.’s no-cash bail and replace it with cash bail. In August, President Donald Trump signed an executive order eliminating cashless bail nationwide, although blue states continue to push back and let sometimes violent criminals back onto the street to re-offend. 

The second bill, the Common-Sense Law Enforcement and Accountability Now in DC Act (H.R. 5107), or the CLEAN DC Act, was introduced by Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) and walks back several restrictions on D.C. Metro Police, such as placing limits on chokeholds, implementing rules on the use of bodycams, and increasing police accountability. Those moves are widely blamed by Republicans for a 2024 crime increase in our nation’s capital. 

In a statement, the House Oversight Committee announced the bills will help combat crime and empower local law enforcement. 

“For far too long, dangerous criminals have been allowed to roam the streets of Washington, D.C. Posing a threat to the general public, and progressive liberal judges are currently allowed to release them,” House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY) said. 

As expected, House Democrats pushed back on the legislation, saying local elected leaders in D.C. should make such policies. 

“The people best positioned to make decisions about local policies in their local communities are local leaders, after you listen to the local community,” said Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-VA). 

“Tonight’s votes are yet another example demonstrating that House Republicans, elected to represent far-away districts, are more interested in forcing their will on D.C. residents than in representing the interests of their own constituents,” said fossil Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), who oversaw the crime explosion in the district she is supposed to represent.

“Rep. Stefanik’s bill forces mandatory detention without due process protections that the Constitution requires and Americans rightly expect, and Rep. Clyde’s bill would overturn carefully negotiated, locally supported police reform laws.”

The above statement by Holmes Norton shows she has little knowledge of what constitutes due process. The Supreme Court has defined a “prompt judicial determination of probable cause” to occur within 48 hours of arrest. As long as that benchmark is not violated, it is not a violation of due process to hold someone without bail. However, Democrats such as Holmes Norton never met a criminal they didn’t love. 

Another critic of the legislation is D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has been the beneficiary of the city’s cratering crime rate. She called the bills “an affront to Home Rule.” 

Cully Stimson of The Heritage Foundation slammed the so-called “reforms” put in place after George Floyd died of a drug overdose in Minneapolis police custody in 2020. 

“These weren’t police reforms. These are police ‘de-forms’ when you don’t let police chase after suspects when they commit crimes right in front of their very face,” Stimson said. 

Conversely, a criminal advocate, Ariel Levinson-Waldman, with the Tzedek DC Legal Center, said, “It doesn’t improve safety in our jails, and on top of that, our jails cannot handle what this proposal is.”