Disapproving the Action of the District of Columbia Council in Approving the Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Kentucky, the chairman of the Oversight Committee, for yielding.

I also thank Congressman Clyde for bringing H.J. Res. 26, the bill to address this serious problem of crime.

You have been hearing this debate on the floor. I am sure people watching at home are watching in amazement that this is not a unanimous discussion, that we are not all standing up here on the House floor deploring the crime that is out of control in the District of Columbia.

We have seen it in so many communities around America. You see it in so many big cities--pretty much all run by Democrats, I will point out--where crime is out of control after they have dropped penalties for criminals, where they have defunded the police, this massive shift against law enforcement, against keeping communities safe. You would think we would all be in agreement on that.

The fact is that in D.C., sexual abuse is up 157 percent. You would think you would hear the other side joining us in speaking out against that, not trying to defend laws that make it easier to get criminals out of jail.

Motor vehicle theft up 88 percent. Total property crime up 31 percent. Homicides increased 22 percent.

We see stories of carjackings every day, and what did the D.C. Council do?

They passed a resolution to get rid of mandatory minimums on many violent crimes.

This isn't some petty crime we are talking about. We are talking about violent crimes. Armed carjackings. The mandatory minimum used to be 15 years for an armed carjacking; dropped to zero. Not a day.

You can hold somebody up at gunpoint and take their car from them, and you could literally walk out of jail the next day without serving a day in prison, and you wonder why crime is out of control. The D.C. Mayor vetoed the ordinance; the council overrode it.

Now, you hear a lot of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle talking about why is Congress even doing this?

Well, you know, Mr. Speaker, just the other day, we actually spent a day reading the entire United States Constitution on the House floor.

Maybe my Democrat colleagues didn't listen to that discussion. Maybe they haven't read the United States Constitution in a long time, but I will break the copy out. It is easy to read.

Article I, Section 8 talks about the District of Columbia. It says, ``Congress shall have power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District. . . .''

Yes. Congress is given the exclusive right to legislate in all cases dealing with the District of Columbia.

You can talk about debates that go on in statehouses. The District of Columbia is not a State for a lot of reasons.

Our Founding Fathers actually wanted a Capitol of the United States that wasn't part of a State. There is a lot of debate about why that happened.

In fact, this land that we are standing on right now used to be part of a State. The State is called Maryland. It is still there.

Maryland gave land to the United States because our Nation decided we wanted the Capitol to be in a place that is not tied to the other States, that is just the home of the Nation's Capital.

It gave Congress in the Constitution the authority to get involved in these kinds of issues.

It doesn't happen often, but my God, if we can't come together with crime out of control, with people being killed, with criminals being let out the next day after violent crimes are committed, and mandatory minimums are dropped from 15 years to zero, if you hold a gun to somebody's head and carjack them, that is why we are coming together, to take a stand.

Everybody can vote. If they are okay with letting the carjackers walk scot-free, they will have that opportunity.

Don't count me in that number. I would say don't count the people that live in the District of Columbia, living in fear of crime. They don't want that crime.

The millions of people that come as tourists to visit our Nation's Capital should not live in fear of that violent crime every day because criminals get to walk free.

How is the governance determined?

They allow people that are here illegally to vote in D.C.

We have another bill that we are bringing up to say that people here illegally cannot vote in D.C. elections.

It is bizarre, listening to the debate on the other side that wants to defend that ability for illegals. We went and verified. There is not even an exception for foreign nationals.

So people that work at the Chinese Embassy, we saw how they respect our laws in the United States. They flew a spy balloon over most of the sensitive military bases of our Nation last week.

Yet, people that work at the Chinese Embassy are Chinese citizens and can vote in D.C. elections. There is a piece of legislation that repeals that, as well.

Obviously, there are some in this Chamber who want to defend the right for people here illegally, including people that work for the CCP that are Chinese nationals, that are Russian nationals, they want them to be able to vote in D.C. elections.

Enough is enough. We are exercising our constitutional right to say no to this madness. Let's restore law and order. Let's stand up for law and order and the people of the District of Columbia and all the millions of people who come to visit this Nation's Capital who don't want to live in fear, who don't think that the carjackers should be able to walk scot-free if they pull out a gun and put it to somebody's head to take their car or to break into their house or to do so many other violent things that are causing fear through our communities.

We can do something about this. We ought to do this. We ought to pass both of these pieces of legislation. I urge passage.

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