Three months ago, President Trump urged Republicans to repair a budget hole of $ 1.1 billion at home that they forced this week at Washington, DC, the legislators have advanced the accounts instead to impose their policy agenda on the financing of the City-Ondering.
On Tuesday, the house adopted two legislative proposals to reverse the local legislation by the district of the district: one to withdraw a law that non -citizens steam in local elections and another removal provisions that make it easier to discipline police officers for misconduct.
A third bill, planned for a vote later this week, would forbid the district to adopt the laws of the sanctuary and force local officials to collaborate with the federal immigration policy.
Even when they moved to shape the laws of the district, house republicans did not take any steps to tackle the budget hole they created when they approved a stop -expenditure account in March. Various legislators suggested Tuesday that a resolution remained far away and possibly even from the table, despite the indicated support of Mr Trump.
“Nobody is talking about it anymore,” said representative Andy Harris van Maryland, the chairman of the ultra -conservative house Freedom Caucus. “Nobody is talking about it completely.”
Speaker Mike Johnson has blamed for the need to tackle other Republican priorities. “We have a lot on our plate,” he said Tuesday.
All three district -related accounts should still be approved by the Senate, whereby seven Democrats should join all Republicans to allow the measures to be eligible for a vote.
Because Republicans took control of the house two years ago, they increasingly wanted to exercise the powers of the congress to block the legislation of district officials. The house last year went one Similar prohibition on non -burgers voicesBut it was certain in the Senate -led Senate.
According to the 1973 law that gave the inhabitants of the district the authority to choose a mayor and council, the congress kept the authority to revise the legislation of the district. The approximately 700,000 inhabitants of the district have no voice in the congress, but are represented by a non -voicing home representative, representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, who can serve in home committees but cannot vote on bills.
On the floor of the house, Mrs. Norton, a democrat, condemned the house legislation as ‘anti -democratic’, and said that the accounts undermined the rights of the local residents to manage themselves.
“It is always wrong and never the right time for the congress to take legislation on local DC cases,” said Mrs. Norton. But the bills were still Egregious, she added, given the failure to tackle the budget deficit, which they called ‘tax sabotage’ by Republicans.
When the Republicans approve a bill in March to keep the federal government financed, contained no routine language that exempts the budget of the district from spending limits. Without this, the district was forced to return to last year’s financing levels, although the money it spends comes from local taxes that it has already collected.
The Senate approved the individual legislation overwhelming to remedy the issue. Mr Trump – who has sounded practically mayors in his explained ambitions to clean up the streets of the district and ‘beautifying’ his parks – threw his approval behind the measure. But The house has never recorded the solution.
When nothing had happened in April, Mayor Muriel Bowser warned the congress That, according to a federal law of 2009, it had the authority to increase local credits by 6 percent, reducing the billion dollars to $ 410 million. That still comes down to a substantial reduction of what the district had budgeted.
Mrs. Bowser’s office said in a statement that they “continue to oppose all congress interminging in the lives and affairs of Washingtonians” and urged the house to pass on the financing and “to determine their damage” to the district budget.
Some Republicans agree that the district of autonomy must have the income it collects.
“I support DC who spends his own money,” said representative James Comer of Kentucky, the chairman of the Supervisory Committee, which supervises the laws and budget of the district, during a hearing on the accounts on Monday. “That has nothing to do with the legislation we present today.”
But other Republicans have maintained that their support for the expenditure solution was dependent on their views on voices, abortion and other issues.
Reporter Steve Scalise of Louisiana, no. 2 Republican, suggested that problems still had to be tackled before the budget measure could be adopted.
“We are working on it now,” he said on Tuesday. “But there are clearly other problems that we try to solve along the way.”
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