America's Talking - U.S. Senate Widely Rejects Democrats D.C. Crime Plan

Episode Date: March 11, 2023

The U.S. Senate voted 81-14 Wednesday to overturn the Washington, D.C. city council's plan to lower the penalties for a range of criminal offenses. Biden had expressed support for Congress stepping in. As previously reported, the bill would have reduced the maximum penalties for offenses like murders, armed robberies, armed home invasion burglaries, armed carjackings, unlawful gun possession, and some sexual assault offenses. Late Wednesday, 33 Democrat Senators voted with Republicans to block the criminal penalties reform in a rare exertion of Congress' jurisdiction over the capital city. Total crime is up 25% in D.C. so far this year. --- Listen to Other ATN Productions: America's Talking: An interview podcast hosted by Austin Berg. Guests include professors, journalists, artists, business and nonprofit leaders, authors, and more. Everyday Economics: Join economist Dr. Orphe Divounguy and Chris Krug as they discuss global markets, inflation, and everything else that will help you understand the economic world around you. Future of Freedom: Future of Freedom is a bi-weekly podcast highlighting the work of the non-profits which are shaping the future of the freedom movement. Listeners will hear civil, intellectual conversations about why the organizations exist, what their mission is, and how they work to achieve it. Hosted by Scot Bertram. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to America and Focus. I'm Dan McAaleb, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me today again is Casey Harper, the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief. There is an interesting battle between the Washington, D.C. City Council and Congress. There was a proposal that was killed earlier this week to essentially reform crime laws in the district. Some council members wanted to reduce penalties on certain violent crimes, even as violent crime has been increased. in the city. Congress was opposed to that, though. Tell us more about this story. It's fascinating. It is. And it's, you know, hits close to home literally for me, of course, here in the D.C. area. We have watched crime really rise in the recent years. And I think it's most interesting because

what we're seeing here in D.C. is a microcosm of what's happening in big cities all around the country. I mean, even where you are in Chicago, Dan, there's, you know, been debates over this. It probably impacted the mayor's race. You just had a big, I don't know if it was a big surprise to you, but it was a surprise to a lot of people that, you know, Lori Lightfoot is no more. But what we had in D.C. is is rising crime. So overall, total crime is up 25% in D.C. You know, other things like homicides are up 31% this year. Sexual abuse is up 113%. Motor vehicle theft is up 110%. And arson is up 300%. Right. So this is, you know, what's going in DC. You know, when you live in a city, you kind of experience this anecdotally. And of course, that's not as accurate as the data, but the data backs it up. You just see more. more crime. You see more instances in the news. There's been some big shootings in D.C. And so it's

been troubling me. It's been, you know, I think worrying a lot of local D.C. residents. And on top of that, there was actually a Democratic congresswoman who was attacked in the elevator of her apartment building. And she was okay. Thankfully, she suffered some minor injuries. But, you know, I think all that, that could have kind of put a face to it. But D.C. has really been devolving into more and more crime. And right at that moment is right in this moment is when the D.C. City Council has pushed for lessening the mandatory penalties for a lot of these crimes, and some of them are pretty low. And so, of course, this led to what you referenced, which is the U.S. Congress intervening in saying, actually, D.C., you can't do this. Now, this gets into some technical legal things of how D.C. is governed,

which is different from other cities. You know, most, every other city, the U.S. Congress can't overrule the city council, but D.C. is unique. Now, I will say that the D.C. local leaders dispute Congress's authority to do this, but I think it is in statute that they can do this. They just want to be independent. You know, there's a big, I don't know if you know this, but the license plates in D.C. say taxation without representation because D.C.'s got 600,000 people and no elected leader. And so that's kind of a whole D.C. statehood debate that this is dipping into as well. But top line, a lot of lawmakers were upset about the D.C. City Council doing this. But where really hit a tipping point is when President Joe Biden said that basically said that he supported the effort to stop D.C.'s, you know,

penalty reform and lessening these penalties. So this gave, you know, political cover for a lot of Democrats to side with Republicans. There was 81 senators voted this week to overturn D.C.'s criminal reform stuff. So, you know, you don't see too much that kind of bipartisan stuff in the Senate too often these days. So this is, but I, you know, I would be interested to hear what you think about, you know, Chicago and other cities because I think that this idea of crime getting worse, even as local leaders get softer on crime, is happening in a lot of places. Yeah, so you referenced Chicago and you referenced crime in major cities across the country going up. Last week, there was a mayor mayor, Lori Lightfoot, was on the ballot.

Essentially, there were nine people on the ballot. It's an open primary. So Republicans, Democrats, independents all run in the same primary. It being Chicago, there were no Republicans on the ballot. It was eight Democrats and an independent. Lori Lightfoot, the incumbent mayor, finished in third in that. primary and the top two candidates move on. So Lori Lightfoot became the first sitting mayor in more than 40 years not to advance out of the primary. And the lead vote getter in that primary,

Paul Valles, made crime in the city, his top issue. Crime in Chicago has to vote. We've written at the center square, at the center square, we cover Washington, D.C., and we cover all 50 states. We've written at thecentersquare.com about rising crime in Philadelphia, about rising crime in Los Angeles in San Francisco, in Austin, Texas, and Houston, Texas, and major metros across the country. So that has been a huge concern for voters the last couple of years. This D.C. City Council effort, I'm not surprised it got pushed back from Congress, to be honest with you. Yeah, I mean, you're right. And I didn't know that about Chicago. And I would say, this is not just like the top three or four biggest cities. This isn't just like Chicago, New York, and

DC that are having this phenomenon. I mean, this is even in mid-sized cities, we're seeing this. You know, we don't have to go all the way in on this, but what is also getting wrapped up in this is this equity agenda stuff. And so much of what's motivating the softer criminal penalties is the new kind of CRT equity agenda trying to make the criminal justice system more equitable. That's why you might ask, it doesn't really make sense on first glance. It's like, why are these all going to do it? But it's because there's this ideology that's permeating in every level. And then there's also the prosecutors around the country are also taking this on. And it's because many of them are backed, you know, by, I know this, I don't want to beat this horse

to death. People probably heard about it. But the George Soros prosecutors, George Soros pours all these money into these local prosecutor races, just overwhelms it with his cash. And then he elects a very, you know, soft on crime prosecutor who just doesn't prosecute certain cases. And we've seen this. You see it a lot in California, but there's these prosecutors who just say they're not going

to prosecute certain crimes. And that, you know, word gets out on that. And so I think we're on the verge of seeing kind of a, the pendulum is swung one way to being soft. And I think we're about to see a swing the other way to people, you know, getting tired of this and cracking down. That's often what happens with the crime issue. People, they start to get soft on crime, be compassionate. And then crime gets out of control and then people crack down. And it's kind of law and order.

And it goes back and forth. I think we're about to go back into a law and order phase here. Yeah, that whole George Shores funded prosecutor thing and what equity in the criminal justice system, And that could be a whole segment on itself, Casey. Thank you for your insight, Casey, for our listeners. Find all of Casey's great reporting at thecentersquare.com. For Casey Harper, I'm Dan McAidlb. Please subscribe and thank you for listening.