A staff writer for the Atlantic questioned why President Biden was "attacking democracy" after he signaled he would sign a resolution ending a Washington, D.C., crime bill that would have softened penalties for violent crimes, including carjackings and burglaries.
Adam Serwer pointed out Biden’s apparent double standard about advocating his support for Washington D.C.’s self-rule while coming out against a proposal that the D.C. Council voted to pass.
"If you support self-rule for jurisdictions only so long as they do not make choices you oppose, you do not actually support self-rule," Serwer wrote.
Biden on Thursday tweeted his support of "D.C. statehood and "home-rule" but said he doesn’t support "some of the changes D.C. Council put forward over the Mayor’s objections- such as lowering penalties for carjackings."
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In January, the D.C. Council voted to override Mayor Muriel Bowser’s veto of the sweeping criminal reform legislation. Bowser expressed concern over the bill, saying it would "exacerbate the already stretched capacity of the court system; and it would reduce maximum criminal penalties for violent crimes like carjacking and robberies."
The overhaul of the city’s criminal code, which was originally written in 1901, includes reduced maximum sentences, the elimination of nearly all mandatory minimum sentences, and expanded rights to jury trials by those accused of misdemeanors.
In February, the GOP-led House approved the resolution to nix the update to the Washington, D.C., code in a 250-173 vote.
Serwer said the move was "just the latest episode in a long history of the federal government’s contempt for D.C.’s right to govern itself."
He also argued there is a "long-standing hostility toward the very idea of home rule in D.C. stems from the belief that Black people are incapable of governing themselves."
"This argument, though, has persisted even as the city’s Black majority has become a plurality: D.C. cannot be allowed to govern itself, because its voters might make decisions that its overlords do not like," Sewer wrote. "In some states, legislators who could not count to 20 without taking off their shoes make a show of passing idiotic and cruel legislation that violates their constituents’ most basic rights, but no one ever suggests that the voters who elected them be denied democratic self-determination as a result. The people of Washington, D.C., have no less a right to govern their own affairs than the people of Texas or Florida."
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The staff writer added that Congress’s decision to get involved and override the D.C. Council’s move only illustrates why D.C. should be granted statehood.
"D.C. deserves statehood because its residents, who outnumber those of Wyoming and Vermont, have their own political and cultural identity and have the same right as every other American to determine their own fate," Serwer said. "The city’s residents should be able to govern themselves without interference from politicians looking to burnish their reputations with their performative contempt for the people who actually live and work there."
Some Senate Democrats, including Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., have voiced support for reversing the code revision.
"I don’t support it. I mean, I want to put people away, I don’t want to let them out," Manchin told CNN on Monday. "I haven’t been briefed on it, but what I know about it, I would vote to rescind it."
