Majority Of House Democrats Oppose Legislative Push To Combat Pressing DC Crime Problem

Nearly all House Democrats voted against GOP legislation aimed at reducing juvenile crime in the District of Columbia on Tuesday evening.

The House of Representatives passed two bills to roll back soft-on-crime policies in the district that Republicans argue embolden repeat offenders and deter local law enforcement. The legislative push comes as President Donald Trump is threatening to reassert federal control over the capital city’s law enforcement due to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s refusal to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Just 29 House Democrats voted for legislation (H.R. 4922) that would allow individuals 18 to 24 years-old to be sentenced as an adult and require youth offender crime statistics to be public in the nation’s capital.

Similarly, just eight Democratic lawmakers supported a bill (H.R. 5140) that would lower the age at which minors could be tried as an adult for various violent criminal offenses.

The nation’s capital saw a marked decrease in violent crime since Trump’s crime crackdown efforts began on Aug. 11, according to a Daily Caller review of Metropolitan Police Department data.

The Daily Caller compared a two-week period during Trump’s federal takeover of D.C. law enforcement to the same time periods in 2024 and 2023 and found a noticeable dip in crime — a 21% drop in 2024 and a 33% drop in 2023.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser had also publicly acknowledged that the federal law enforcement surge in the nation’s capital has helped fight crime and said she was grateful for the extra support.