Three months ago, President Trump urged Republicans in the House of Representatives to “reform a $ 1.1 billion budget hole in Washington, DC this week, and instead, legislators submitted bills to impose their political agenda on the government-led government in the city-without addressing the financing deficit.
The House of Representatives passed a draft law on Tuesday to retract the local legislation approved by the provincial government: one to cancel a law that allows a vote for non -citizens in the local elections and other provisions to facilitate the discipline of police officers for misconduct. Both of them went through the support of the two parties.
A third draft law, to vote later this week, will prevent the boycott from passing the laws of resort and forcing local officials to cooperate with federal immigration policies.
Even when they moved to form a boycott laws, Republicans in the House of Representatives did not take any steps to address the budget opening they created when they passed the Stopgap spending in March. Many legislators suggested on Tuesday that a decision remained far and perhaps even outside the table, despite Mr. Trump’s announced support.
“No one is talking about it,” said actor Andy Harris from Maryland, Chairman of the Freedom Freedom Board of Freedom. “Nobody talks about it at all.”
Speaker Mike Johnson blames the delay in the need to address other Republican priorities. “We have a lot on our dish,” said on Tuesday.
The Senate still approves all bills related to the three provinces, as seven Democrats must join all Republicans to allow measures to vote.
Since Republicans took over the House of Representatives two years ago, they were increasingly eager to exercise the powers of Congress to prevent legislation approved by boycotting officials. The house was approved last year A similar ban on the non -citizen voteBut it stopped in the Senate led by the Democrats.
According to the 1973 law that gave the province’s residents the authority to elect the mayor and the council, the Congress retained the authority to review the boycott legislation. About 700,000 district residents do not get a vote in Congress, but they represent a representative of the House of Representatives, actor Eleanor Holmes Norton, who can work in the parliament committees but cannot vote on bills.
In the House of Representatives Hall, Mrs. Norton, a democracy, condemned the legislation of the House of Representatives as a “anti -democracy”, saying that the bills ruined the rights of the local population to rule.
“It is always wrong, not the right time for Congress to legislate local issues in the capital,” said Ms. Norton. She added that the bills were more terrible, given the failure to address the lack of budget, which was described by “financial sabotage” by Republicans.
When the Republicans passed a bill in March to keep the federal government funded, they are It did not include the routine language that exempt the boycott budget from the boundaries of spending. Without this, the boycott was forced to return to the financing levels last year, although the money it spends comes from the local taxes it already collected.
The Senate approved an overwhelming majority on separate legislation to correct the case. Mr. Trump – who started practically a mayor in his declared ambitions to clean the streets of the province and “beautify” its gardens – threw his support behind this procedure. but The house never took the repair.
When nothing happened by April, The mayor, Morel Busir, alerted Congress According to a federal law of 2009, it had the power to increase local credits by 6 percent, which reduces the shortage of billions of dollars to $ 410 million. This still amounts to a significant reduction of what the boycott was in the budget.
In a statement, Ms. Bousser’s office said that it “continues to oppose all the intervention of Congress in Washington’s life and affairs” and urged the House of Representatives to finance financing and “reform their damages” to the boycott budget.
Some Republicans agree that the boycott must have self -ruling on the revenues it collects.
“I support her own money,” said actor James Commer, from the state of Kentucky, Chairman of the Supervisory Committee, which supervises the province’s laws and budget, during a hearing on the bills on Monday. “This has nothing to do with the legislation we present today.”
However, the other Republicans confirmed that their support for the repair of spending was dependent on their excessive opinions on voting, abortion and other issues.
Actor Steve Scales of Louisiana, Republican No. 2, suggested that issues should still be addressed before passing the budget scale.
“We are working on that now,” he said on Tuesday. “But it is clear that there are other problems that we are trying to solve all the way.”
Both projects approved by the House of Representatives on Tuesday in support of dozens of Democrats. The vote on the procedure that would cancel the boycott vote was from 266 to 148, as 56 democratic were joined by the Republicans to pass it.
The Police Bill has been approved from 235 to 178, where 30 democrats voted in favor of it and four Republicans voting against it.
