Washington-The Chamber Controlled by Republicans is about to approve a trio of bills this week to repeal Washington, DC, immigration laws, vote and surveillance, even when you still have to restore a painful cut of $ 1 billion to the city budget.
The Chamber approved two of the bills on Tuesday. One would prohibit non-citizens from voting in local elections in the capital of the nation, annuling a Washington Law that was approved in 2022. It passed 266-148, with 56 Democrats to join the Republicans in support.
The other bill would restore collective bargaining rights and a statute of limitations for Washington police officers involved in disciplinary cases. He spent 235-178, with 30 Democrats voting for it and four Republicans voting against.
Then, on Thursday, the Chamber is expected to approve a third bill, the Federal Immigration Compliance Law of the Columbia District, which would require the Washington Government to comply with the applications for immigration and customs control and the National Security Department to share information and detain undocumented immigrants. According to Washington’s current law, local authorities do not work with federal immigration officials unless they have judicial orders.
In total, the bills represent the attempt of the Republicans of the Chamber to affirm the authority about Washington of deep blue at a time when the Republican Party has unified the control of the federal government.
The “rule of origin”, in which the mayor and the City Council of Washington make their own laws, but Congress has the ability to review them, has long been a dispute point. Democrats have pressed in recent years to grant full status to Washington, while Republicans have criticized the decisions taken by local leaders and tried to reverse them.
“The City Council of DC made radical decisions in the capital of our nation under the administration of Biden-Harris, approving local laws that are unfortunately inconsistent with the national norms or constitutional principles,” said representative August Pfluger, Republican of Texas, the president of the Conservative Republican Study Committee that created the GOP voting bill, told NBC News in a statement.
“I am proud that the Chamber is taking measures to revoke several of these reckless measures, including my legislation to prohibit non -citizens from voting in the local DC elections,” he said.
At the same time, President Mike Johnson, Republican of the la-la., And Republican leaders have been dragging their feet on a legislative solution for the Washington budget. A government financing bill that Congress approved in March to avoid a closure included a provision that required the city to return to the levels of financing of fiscal year 2024, leaving it with a deficit of $ 1.1 billion.
The measure quickly found the opposition of local leaders. The Senate voted for unanimous consent in March to undo and restore the Washington authority to use local tax dollars as their leaders consider convenient. President Donald Trump supported the solution, calling the Chamber to “immediately” approve the bill on social networks on March 28.
But months later, Johnson has not yet had a vote on the bill, which caused criticism of the Democrats and Mayor Muriel Bowser.
“It is absurd that the camera has not taken it. It is absolutely irresponsible, unfair and under the credibility of the leadership,” said representative Steny Hoyer, D-MD., Which represents a district of Congress on the outskirts of Washington. “It’s not our money, it’s DC’s money … and I don’t know why the speaker has not put the Senate bill on the floor. It will be overwhelmingly approved.”
“This is an at an atrocious example of replacing their judgment with those who are chosen locally to govern the district of Columbia,” said Hoyer.
Last month, Johnson told journalists that he was in communication with Bowser and that the house would occupy the financing solution “as quickly as possible.” He said that passing Trump’s massive internal policy package had assumed “all our energy” and insisted that the delay was not for a “political purpose.”
“We are working on it at this time. It is not as if we had closed the door to that,” said the leader of the majority of the House of Representatives, Steve Scalise, Republican of La-La. “But obviously there are other problems that we are trying to solve along the way.”
Bowser’s office denounced the bill of the Republican party to revoke Washington’s law and, although he pointed out that Washington has mitigated the most “catastrophic” impacts of budgetary restrictions, urged Congress to approve the financing solution.
“Mayor Bowser continues to oppose the entire interference of Congress in the lives and affairs of the Washington. DC will continue to fight to protect our rule of origin and self -determination,” said a Bowser spokesman in an email. “If Congress wants to be useful, they should approve the Local Funds Law of the Columbia district to fix its damage to the 2015 Fiscal Year of DC.”
Johnson’s office did not comment when asked Tuesday when, or if, he still plans to vote on the financing solution.
The representative Lisa McClain, Republican of Mich., Which is number 4 in the republican leadership, said: “Honestly, I do not know; I have not heard that yes or not”, when asked if the financing solution will arise for a vote.
Other Democrats of Congress said Republicans should be kept out of Washington’s problems.
“It is quite bad, in general, when they play in local DC problems, rules at home,” said representative Glenn Ivey, D-Md., Whose Washington district. “But then doing it at a time when they have not returned the $ 1.1 billion is especially atrocious.”
Immigration has dominated the national political debate this week, with protests that exploded in Los Angeles in response to the mass deportation efforts of the Trump administration. Republicans said that the struggle for immigration is a winning problem for the party, and that they have continued to rely on it with the legislation on the floor this week.
“If DC wants the illegal to vote, we have made clear at the federal level that people here should not vote in any choice,” said Scalise.
“We are still the most generous nation in the world in terms of our legal immigration system,” he continued, “but we have to fix our broken immigration system. And you could see what is happening in Los Angeles to test the point.”
