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. RICKETTS. Madam President, we are here today to discuss the resolution disapproving the DC Council's efforts to water down the city's Criminal Code.

Now, some might be wondering why the Congress has a say in the DC Criminal Code. The reason goes back to the founding documents of our country. DC's very existence is in our Constitution, which calls for a district not exceeding 10 square miles to be the seat for the Government of the United States so that, while DC is a place where people live and work, it belongs to the entire Nation.

Citizens from all across this country come here--students, for example--to learn about American history. In fact, I was meeting with some students just earlier today. Citizens come here to interact with their elected officials. We are here today because the DC City Council is trying to make this District--this constitutionally mandated seat of government--a less safe place to be able to live, work, and conduct business.

In the rewriting of DC's Criminal Code, DC is trying to make things such as first-degree murder, carjackings, robberies, burglaries, home invasions--it is trying to reduce the penalties for all of those crimes at a time when the crime rate in DC is rising. For the first time in a couple of decades, DC has seen 2 years of 200 or more homicides. Over the last 5 years, carjackings have increased every single year. In fact, in the first 67 days of this year, reported carjackings have been at 100. Crime, year over year, in DC is up 22 percent, and the DC police chief has said, when they arrest a homicide suspect, that suspect, on average, has been arrested 11 times previously.

Now, there are smart ways to think about criminal justice reform, and that is what we did in Nebraska back in 2015, but reducing the penalties and being soft on crime is not that approach. Rather than reduce the penalties for violent crimes, the city of DC should look at what Omaha, NE--my home city--has done and how they have used community engagement with the police force to reduce homicides. In fact, they have reduced homicides in each of the last 2 years. This is common sense.

We need to stand with law enforcement and respect their work to put criminals behind bars. We need to stand with the law-abiding victims and give them the justice they deserve, and we need to make sure that government is fulfilling its obligation to keep people safe.

That is exactly what we have done in Nebraska. We have rejected the woke politics of these soft-on-crime policies that reduce penalties. In Nebraska, we back the blue. We stand with law enforcement officers as they work to identify, investigate, and arrest criminals. As a seat of government, DC's rising crime is a threat to all Americans and to Nebraskans, which is why the House and the Senate have an obligation to act.

I am grateful to my esteemed colleague from the great State of Tennessee for introducing this resolution and for his leadership on this issue.

I urge all of my colleagues to vote in favor of this as well.

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