From [HERE] The Republican-controlled U.S. House flexed its power over D.C. on Thursday in voting to block a pair of local bills, with support from dozens of Democrats as well — the curtain-raiser this session in a long history of congressional interference in the city’s local governance.

The House voted in favor of resolutions disapproving of the two D.C. bills: one that would allow noncitizens to vote in local D.C. elections, and another marking a major revision of the city’s criminal code, which has not been comprehensively updated since 1901. While the House Democratic whip urged Democrats to vote against both resolutions, 42 Democrats joined Republicans to reject the legislation allowing noncitizen voting and 31 joined Republicans to reject D.C.’s Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022. The bills now head to the Senate, where Democrats have just a narrow majority.

“We have two acts from the Washington, D.C., council that will dilute the vote of American citizens and endanger city residents and businesses,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said of the D.C. bills on the floor Thursday, arguing that it was Congress’s “responsibility” to intervene.

The votes deal a blow to local officials who implored members of Congress to stay out of the city’s affairs, although it is exactly the type of interference they had been bracing for after the GOP took control of the House this year. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), the District’s nonvoting representative, said there is “never justification for Congress nullifying legislation enacted by the District.”

“I can only conclude that the Republican leadership believes D.C. residents, the majority of whom are Black and Brown, are unworthy or uncapable of governing themselves,” she said on the floor. [MORE]