Make the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful Act of 2025

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the so-called Make the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful Act. This is yet another example of the majority wasting our time here, dictating local decisions in D.C., instead of doing our jobs focusing on the real issues affecting the American people.

As we speak, President Trump has us engaged in an unconstitutional, reckless war with Iran. Gas prices are at $4 a gallon. TSA lines are approaching 4 hours. Republicans have stripped healthcare from millions of Americans while giving big tax cuts to billionaires. Masked Federal agents have killed Americans on our streets.

So what legislation do Republicans bring to the floor today? Legislation to bring down the high costs that American families are struggling with? No. Legislation to address the healthcare crisis and the fact that in our own Commonwealth of Virginia, nine rural hospitals are at risk of closing? No. This is a bill to further the President's seeming desire to make himself the king of the District of Columbia.

In this Congress, the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has spent a lot of time meddling in local D.C. matters and none holding the Trump administration accountable for corruption, its coverup of the Epstein files, and for the failure to deliver the lower costs that the President promised.

If President Trump wants to run the District of Columbia, he should resign from the Presidency and run for Mayor. I think there is an opening.

If congressional Republicans want to micromanage the District of Columbia, they should resign from Congress and run for the D.C. Council.

Let's talk specifically about the bill in front of us on which it is important to note the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has not held a single hearing. The bill creates a Federal commission to oversee the District of Columbia, with mass deportation as its first priority. The commission is required to develop policies to ``direct the maximum enforcement of Federal immigration law within the District of Columbia, including policies to encourage the redirection of available Federal, State, or local law enforcement resources to apprehend and deport illegal aliens.''

It is to redirect law enforcement. Redirect law enforcement from the worst of the worst and, presumably, toward detaining more hardworking folks and children on top of the thousands of children that this administration has detained.

At the same time, the commission is required to support efforts to speed up and lower the costs of concealed carry permits in D.C., increasing the risk of gun violence.

My friend, the gentleman from Virginia, talked about crime in the District of Columbia. It is true that violent crime across this country spiked during President Trump's first term, but the good news is that it is way down in D.C. today. In fact, violent crime is at a 40-year low. Now, one crime is one crime too many, but it is at a 40-year low in the District of Columbia today. In fact, dozens of cities in red States, represented by my friends on the other side of the aisle, have higher violent crime rates than the District of Columbia.

The bill also requires the Secretary of the Interior to ``develop a program to beautify the District of Columbia.''

As a former member of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, I know a little bit about efforts to improve quality of life within local communities in partnership with those communities, and that is not what this bill does. The so-called beautification project is not intended to improve the lives of the 700,000 people who call D.C. home. It is an instruction to the Secretary of the Interior and the commission to transform D.C. into Mar-a-Lago on the Potomac for President Trump's benefit.

If my friends on the other side were serious about making D.C. safer and more beautiful, they wouldn't have blocked the District from spending its own tax revenue last year. They blocked the use of $1 billion in local D.C. funds, funds that could have gone towards locally-directed efforts that would have made D.C. safer and more beautiful for its residents.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this legislation and instead support efforts that respect local officials here in D.C. and across the country who work to make our communities safer and more beautiful.

D.C. residents are among the only Americans who have all the responsibilities of citizenship in this country but don't enjoy all the benefits. If Republicans want to legislate on D.C. matters, let's pass D.C. statehood and give them all the benefits of citizenship.

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Mr. WALKINSHAW. Mr. Speaker, I hear my friends on the other side often talking about the constitutional authority that this Congress has to legislate with respect to the District of Columbia, and I would make two points.

One, I think the question isn't can we. The question is should we. Should we substitute our judgment based on the anecdotes we might have heard for the judgment of the District of Columbia's elected representatives who are connected to their communities each and every day and if they aren't responsive to those communities can be unelected by those communities.

I would submit that they are in a better position than us to determine the policies for the District of Columbia.

Norton), an elected Representative of the District of Columbia.

With respect to the concealed carry permit and streamlining the process, one of the aspects of the District's process that does take a little bit of time is the requirement for range training. I suspect that what the gentleman means when he says he wants to streamline the process for concealed carry permits in D.C. is he wants folks to have a concealed carry permit without completing range training. I know some people have that philosophy. I don't think that would make the District of Columbia safer.

With respect to the crime data manipulation, as the gentleman noted, last year the Republicans on the Oversight Committee investigated alleged crime data manipulation in D.C. By the way, it is the same crime data that today they and President Trump celebrate as he claims to have eliminated violent crime in the District of Columbia.

The investigation backfired on my Republican friends almost as soon as it began, thanks in large part to the testimony of every one of the eight current and former D.C. police commanders who sat down for transcribed interviews. That investigation proved, I think, not what they hoped it would prove.

The evidence was that President Trump was not telling the truth and is not telling the truth about crime in D.C. to justify his federalization of the D.C. police and deployment of troops on D.C. streets. It undermined Republican attacks on home rule by showing that D.C. was successfully reducing crime before the Federal intervention.

Every single one of those commanders testified that D.C. was experiencing a sustained decrease in crime over 2 years, well before President Trump's administration. Commander after commander testified that the data recording this trend wasn't manipulated. In fact, it was the very data they were using every day to help successfully drive down crime.

With respect to the argument that President Trump has made D.C. safer, in 2024, the year before President Trump began his second term, violent crime in D.C. was down 35 percent, a 30-year low. In 2025, it was down 29 percent, which is smaller than 35 percent, so the reduction in crime slowed down after President Trump's intervention.

As I noted before, homicides in D.C. and across the country did spike during President Trump's first term, but they have been falling for years, and the reduction in homicides in D.C. began before President Trump's second term.

We heard some anecdotes that the gentleman has heard from his staff and others. According to a poll conducted by The Washington Post, 80 percent of D.C. residents opposed President Trump's federalization of the D.C. police department and the deployment of the National Guard and Federal law enforcement in D.C. They disagree with the majority's view that President Trump and Federal troops have made D.C. safer.

McClellan).

Mr. Speaker, $4 a gallon gas, 4-hour waits at TSA lines, millions of Americans losing their healthcare, rural hospitals set to close, and tariffs driving up costs for hardworking American families. Those are the challenges that our constituents across the country are facing. Those are the challenges that we here as Members of Congress are supposed to address, yet we are meddling in the District of Columbia's affairs.

Let's do our job in this Congress and work together to bring down costs for the American people. Let the Mayor of the District of Columbia and the District council do their jobs.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. WALKINSHAW. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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