The Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee advanced a bill Wednesday that would give Congress veto power over the District’s attempts to raise taxes and fees, in what the bill’s top sponsor framed as a bulwark against a likely socialist mayor.
Rep. James Comer, Kentucky Republican, put forward the bill that would force the District’s tax raises to undergo a 60-day review period before Congress.
The bill passed by a 23-18 margin, and Mr. Comer did not shy away from saying who inspired the legislation during the hearing.
“The ultra progressive candidate for mayor and D.C. Council wants to tax D.C. businesses and residents into oblivion to fund their unmaintainable extinction of social programs,” Mr. Comer said.
Janeese Lewis George, the current Ward 4 Democrat on the D.C. Council, is the Democratic mayoral candidate in this fall’s general election and is almost certain to win — the city is 92%-6% Democratic.
The likely mayor has proposed new taxes on wealthier individuals and District businesses owned by non-city residents to help fund her key campaign promises such as lowering childcare costs.
While Ms. Lewis George has not commented publicly on the legislation, Democrats in the House committee vocally denounced the legislation as pointless.
“We can’t even pass our own bills. Now you want to add to that and pass the bills of D.C.?” said Rep. Maxwell Frost, Florida Democrat. “You want to run the DC budget? Why don’t we run our own budget?”
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District’s nonvoting representative in Congress, called the bill the “most consequential reduction in D.C.’s authority to govern itself since the D.C. Home Rule Act was passed in 1973.”
Ms. Holmes Norton’s likely successor, D.C. Council member Robert White, has said the proposal would turn the city’s budget into “a request we sent to Congress that dies the moment they ignore it. That’s not oversight. It’s a veto over our own city.”
Mayor Muriel Bowser, for her part, criticized Congress for counteracting President Trump’s mission of making the District safe and beautiful.
But Republicans on the committee, such as Rep. Gary Palmer of Alabama, said the District is “not a successful city,” and other GOP members argued it was Congress’ constitutional duty to ensure the nation’s capital is being run properly.
Republican lawmakers have passed several bills addressing the District’s governance during Mr. Trump’s second term.
Most of those bills targeted public safety issues, such as proposing a lower age at which juveniles could be charged as adults and relaxing police pursuit rules. Other bills have sought to unplug the city’s hundreds of traffic cameras that legislators have decried as a cash grab.
But the bill to give Congress veto power over D.C. taxes faces steep odds of becoming law. Even if it passes the full House, it would need to win over several Democrats in the Senate before going to the president’s desk.
