Oppose Bills to Micromanage Policies in the District of Columbia

Justice Reform Resources, Voting Rights Resources 09.17.25

View a PDF of this Advocacy Letter here

September 15, 2025

Dear Representative:

On behalf of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of more than 240 national civil and human rights advocacy organizations, I am writing to express our opposition to H.R. 5140, H.R. 4922, H.R. 5143 and H.R. 5125. For the reasons below, The Leadership Conference intends to record your vote on all four of these bills in our voting record for the 119th Congress.

Together, these bills represent yet another needless intrusion into D.C. local government, and yet another attack on the political power of a majority minority population. The House is taking up these bills without a single vote on behalf of the people who will live with the policy consequences – this is because despite paying federal taxes, D.C. citizens have no voting representation in Congress.

Despite what you will likely hear during the debate over these bills, there is no “crime emergency” in the District of Columbia. Violent crime in D.C. fell by 35 percent in 2024 compared to the previous year, and it is now at a 30-year low. If there were a true crime emergency, Congress would be moving quickly to expand D.C.’s resources – including by restoring the more than $1 billion that Congress inexplicably forced D.C. to slash from its locally-funded budget earlier this year. Instead, it is simply micromanaging a handful of policies with no meaningful input from the people who live here full-time.

We oppose the four D.C. related bills coming to the floor this week because:

  • H.R. 4922, the “DC CRIMES Act,” would roll back Youth Rehabilitation Act provisions in a way that would expose more people to senseless mandatory minimum sentences, and would ultimately increase recidivism.
  • H.R. 5140, the “District of Columbia Juvenile Sentencing Reform Act,” would allow children as young as 14 to be charged as adults, even though evidence shows that a minor charged as an adult is more likely to reoffend, and to be violent after release, than a minor charged as a juvenile.
  • H.R. 5125, the “District of Columbia Judicial Nominations Reform Act,” would eliminate the already-limited role that D.C. residents have in selecting judges for their purely local courts, while doing nothing to address longstanding issues with judicial vacancies.
  • H.R. 5143, the “District of Columbia Policing Protection Act,” would drastically weaken rules governing when D.C. police can engage in high-speed pursuits, likely increasing their use, as well as increasing the risks to innocent bystanders in the process.

Again, The Leadership Conference urges you to oppose these bills. If you have any questions, please contact Rob Randhava, Senior Counsel, at [email protected].

 

Sincerely,

Maya Wiley
President and CEO