Officials in Washington, D.C., are planning to defy Congress as an escalating legal battle brews over Republican legislation banning the District from spending money without congressional approval.
“The current D.C. government needs to be reined in,” Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement Wednesday. “We will not allow Congress and the Constitution to be undermined.”
Republicans in the House of Representatives are sparring with officials in the District over the legality of the D.C. Council’s plan to spend money from its 2016 budget before the House gives it approval. Ryan is blasting the efforts as unconstitutional, while local leaders charge House Republicans are playing politics with D.C.’s finances to impede laws they disagree with. (RELATED: Congress Asserts Fiscal Dominance Over DC, Rebukes Move Toward Statehood)
“For weeks, House Republicans have been disguising their opposition to D.C. budget autonomy with legalistic arguments, despite a court decision upholding the referendum,” Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District’s non-voting member in Congress, said Thursday in a press release. “However, Speaker Ryan candidly admitted that Republicans want to keep their authoritarian grip over D.C.’s locally-raised funds in order to block policies they oppose.”
The House passed legislation Wednesday upending a 2012 amendment approved in the District granting it full budget autonomy. The referendum eliminated a measure from the 1973 city charter requiring it to wait for congressional approval before spending money from its budget. It allows the city to start spending after a 30 day review period upon submission to Congress in which it can only cast an up or down vote approving the budget. (RELATED: Obama Threatens To Veto Bill Undermining DC Budget Autonomy)
The U.S. District Court struck the amendment down, however the D.C. Superior Court ruled in March the District has a right to spend freely. The D.C. Council argues the judge’s ruling is all the approval it needs to defy Congress.
Despite passing in the House, the bill is facing a potentially tough vote in the Senate and a presidential veto. President Barrack Obama entered the fray over D.C. budget autonomy Wednesday, saying the president’s top advisers would likely recommend a veto.
“The Administration strongly supports home rule for the District,” read a statement from the White House. “Such authority is fundamental to a well-functioning democracy, and the Congress denying the District this authority is an affront to the residents and elected leaders of the District. ”
The D.C. Council, with the support of Mayor Muriel Bowser, is planning to spend freely regardless of what Congress ultimately decides. Officials allege it is simply a way for Republicans in Congress to try and control D.C. laws, such as on abortion funding and marijuana policy. It is setting up for an ugly confrontation.
Budget autonomy is key to District officials’ push for statehood. D.C. citizens currently don’t fully control their budget and legislative process, and are denied representation in the Senate. Before the budget autonomy amendment the mayor would have to propose a budget for approval by the D.C. Council, which is then sent to the White House to be appropriated as a federal agency. It is finally approved through a congressional process that gives members the ability to actively change proposals they disagree with before giving the city the green light to spend.
D.C.’s marijuana ballot initiative passed with roughly 64 percent support, but the legalities of the referendum remain in limbo a year later due to disagreement from Republicans in Congress. Republicans are warning D.C. officials to not take their legislative actions lightly, suggesting serious legal consequences.
Republican Rep. Mark Meadows told The Washington Post in early May officials could be “subject to potential administrative penalties and could even be even subject to criminal liabilities.”
The D.C. Council looks poised to approve its budget Tuesday, which will likely prompt more heated threats from members in the House. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson brushed off the idea there could be criminal penalties.
“It’s absurd to think that somebody would come in an arrest me,” Mendelson told WAMU. “But if they were to arrest me, I would pull out the Superior Court decision and say, ‘Your honor, a judge said I have to do this and that this is the law.'”
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