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UPDATE (March 8, 2023, 7:40 p.m. ET): The Senate on Wednesday passed a resolution to overturn a criminal justice reform bill in Washington, D.C., with 33 Democrats joining Republicans to pass the measure after President Joe Biden expressed his support for it.
Say it ain’t so, Joe.
President Biden announced on Thursday he will sign a GOP-led bill, if passed by the Senate, that would overturn criminal justice reforms in Washington, D.C., recently approved by the city council.
The move finds Biden in alignment with many of the “MAGA Republicans” he has derided in the past for political extremism, as well as conservative-leaning Democrats, who’ve invoked inflammatory, thinly veiled bigotry in statements predicting the district would descend into widespread lawlessness if the measures were allowed to stay in place. In January, D.C.'s majority-Black city council overruled Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser's veto of a bill overhauling the city's criminal code. The bill included measures that would eliminate most mandatory minimum sentences, reduce mandatory maximum penalties and allow for jury trials on misdemeanor charges.
Earlier this week, I wrote about the Senate and House resolutions introduced to overturn the council’s decision in a list of the conservative movement’s most egregiously racist power grabs.
Biden tweeted his support for the Senate version on Thursday:
As Nazgol Ghandnoosh, co-director of research for The Sentencing Project, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed last fall, the proposed changes in the code are needed to address years of ineffective, often racist, policing.
Biden’s agreement on overruling the will of a city council that was empowered by Washington, D.C. voters flies in the face of his self-proclaimed support for self-determination in the district — most notably, his support for D.C. statehood. It appears the president thinks Washingtonians, and the officials they elect, should be allowed to make their own choices — except when he says they shouldn’t.
Remember this the next time the White House inevitably touts its record with Black voters.
It’s a completely incoherent and inexcusable stance from a man whose record on criminal justice is already rife with blemishes. During his time in the Senate, Biden famously sponsored the 1994 crime bill widely credited for contributing to mass incarceration — disproportionately, among Black people. This, you’ll remember, was an issue then-candidates Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and others brought up during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary race. That crime bill was largely premised on a flawed belief Biden apparently still holds, given his tweet’s reference to carjacking penalties: that more severe punishments and lower crime rates go hand-in-hand. Studies have debunked that theory.
Biden’s negative influence on yet another crime bill, and its potential to marginalize many of the people harmed by the first one, suggests he hasn’t learned much since 1994.
Remember this the next time the White House inevitably touts its record with Black voters. Politically, this move is self-injurious — for Biden, who is considering a run for re-election, and for the Democratic Party generally. Morally, it’s straight-up shameful.