Jeffries won’t criticize Biden over DC crime bill

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Sunday wouldn’t criticize President Biden over his pledge to sign a Republican-led effort to block a Washington, D.C., crime reform bill.

“Did President Biden pull the rug out from under you and your fellow House Democrats?” asked anchor Dana Bash on CNN’s “State of the Union,” noting that Jeffries voted in favor of keeping the bill in place when it passed the House.

“Not at all. We have the House, we have the Senate, and then we have the White House. In terms of my particular reasons for voting the way that I did, one, I believe that local government should have control over local matters. And that’s a principle that I’ve supported from the moment that I arrived in Washington, D.C. It’s one of the reasons why I believe in D.C. statehood. And in this particular case, I voted to affirm local rule,” Jeffries said. 

Jeffries was among 173 House Democrats who voted against a GOP effort to override the D.C. crime bill. Biden last week told Senate Democrats that he would not veto the measure when it landed at his desk, bucking a majority of his party’s stances.

Bash pressed the House Democratic leader on whether he was OK with Biden overriding the effort he supports. 

“Well, let’s take it one step at a time. We have to see what happens in the United States Senate next week. Depending on what the Senate does, the president will have to respond one way or another. I haven’t had an opportunity to talk to the White House yet about the president’s views, so I’m not going to characterize his position one way or the other, until we’ve had a chance to talk about that issue,” Jeffries said. 

The crime bill passed the D.C. City Council unanimously earlier this year, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) vetoed it which the City Council then overrode it 12-1. The bill would eliminate most mandatory sentences and lower penalties for some violent offenses, among other measures.

Jeffries said Sunday he’s gotten “the sense” that House Democrats are frustrated with the White House over the bill and repeated that he didn’t want to “characterize” what Biden “may or may not do” on the matter. 

“What I can say is that I will continue to support the principle of local government control over local matters. There are more than 700,000 people in the District of Columbia. They elect the City Council, they elect the mayor, they can continue to work out those issues.”