District of Columbia
D.C. debates how to cope with crime as reform bill heads to Senate
House Democrats join GOP in voting to overturn measure
Just over three weeks after the D.C. Council overturned Mayor Muriel Bowser’s veto of a controversial criminal code reform bill that the Council had passed unanimously last November, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives on Feb. 9 voted 250 to 173 to overturn the D.C. bill.
In a development that surprised some D.C. political observers, including LGBTQ activists, 31 House Democrats were among those joining Republicans in voting to overturn the sweeping 450-page Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022.
On the same day that it voted to overturn the crime bill, the House voted 260 to 162, with 42 House Democrats voting yes, to pass a second disapproval resolution calling for overturning a bill approved by the D.C. Council to allow non-citizens to vote in local D.C. elections.
Both bills must now go to the U.S. Senate, where Democrats have a slim majority and where just a few Democratic senators voting to overturn either of the two bills, including the crime bill, could result in passage of the disapproval measure. It would then go to President Joe Biden, who would be faced with the choice of vetoing the measures or allowing one or both of the two D.C. bills to be overturned.
The president has said he opposes both of the two disapproval resolutions in the House, but he has not said whether he would veto the disapproval measures.
Most of those who have expressed concern over the criminal code reform bill, including Bowser, D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee, and the Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C., have said they support 95 percent of the bill’s provisions.
Supporters, including D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson (D-At-Large), point out that the voluminous bill was methodically developed over the past 16 years by the nonpartisan D.C. Criminal Code Reform Commission to modernize the city’s criminal code that has not been significantly changed since 1901.
Mendelson and D.C. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), who headed the Council committee that drafted the legislation, strongly dispute claims that the bill would result in increased crime in the city or that it would hamper efforts by police to curtail crime.
The mayor has said her opposition centers around several of the bill’s provisions that, among other things, would eliminate most mandatory minimum prison sentences, reduce maximum sentences for crimes such as burglaries, carjackings, and robberies, and allow jury trials for all misdemeanor cases in which a prison sentence is possible.
Critics say allowing a jury trial for most misdemeanor cases would overwhelm the D.C. Superior Court that they say already has too few judges to handle its criminal case load. Under the city’s 1971 Home Rule Act approved by Congress, the U.S. president appoints all D.C. court judges, and the U.S. Senate must confirm the appointments.
Supporters of the criminal code reform measure point out that it is currently drafted so it does not take effect until 2025, which they say will give the court system time to adapt to the new criminal code. But opponents, including the mayor, say that would not prevent the problems that they say the bill as currently written will bring about when it takes effect.
“This bill does not make us safer,” said Bowser in announcing her decision to veto the bill.
“While no one believes that penalties alone will solve crime and violence right now, we must be very intentional about messages that we are sending to our community, including prosecutors and judges,” the mayor said in a statement. “People, we know, are tired of violence and right now our focus must be on victims and preventing more people from becoming victims,” she said.
Bowser added that the bill would weaken what she said was an already lenient sentence for illegal gun possession by reducing the maximum sentence for carrying a pistol without a license and being a convicted felon in possession of a gun.
She has expressed strong opposition to Congress stepping in to overturn the bill, saying that it should be left up to the city to make any changes needed to improve the bill. Bowser last week submitted to the Council legislation calling for changes in the bill, including removing provisions in the current bill that would lower maximum penalties and allow jury trials for most misdemeanor cases.
Among the most outspoken critics of the criminal code revision bill has been the D.C. Police Union, whose chairperson, Gregg Pemberton, said the legislation would result in “violent crime rates exploding more than they already have.”
Most local LGBTQ organizations have not taken an official position on the bill. Capital Stonewall Democrats, the city’s largest local LGBTQ political group, has yet to take a position on the bill itself and most likely will not do so at this time, according to Monika Nemeth, the group’s recently elected president.
Nemeth said threats by Congress to overturn this and other D.C. bills are of great concern to the organization, and it reconfirms Capital Stonewall Democrats’ strong support for D.C. statehood.
Adam Savit, president of Log Cabin Republicans of D.C., the local chapter of the national LGBTQ Republican organization Log Cabin Republicans, said the local chapter also has not taken an official position on the D.C. criminal code bill. But he said in an email to the Blade that “we generally sympathize with the sentiments of the D.C. GOP,” which has come out against the legislation on grounds that it will result in a higher rate of crime in the city.
“Decreased penalties mean a decreased deterrent, and it will absolutely lead to increased criminality and further undermine the ability of the police to keep order,” Savit said in expressing his own opinion. “The way to protect LGBTQ citizens is to set credible penalties for violent crime and enforce the law,” he said.
The DC Center for the LGBT Community, which oversees its longstanding LGBTQ Anti-Violence Project, did not respond to a request by the Blade for comment on the crime bill.
The D.C. Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance, however, has taken a position in strong support of the measure.
“We applaud the D.C. Council for enacting the Revised Criminal Code Act, an important modernization of our criminal laws that is the product of over 15 years of careful deliberation,” said GLAA President Tyrone Hanley in a statement to the Blade. Hanley said the statement was approved by the GLAA board.
“We have long known that mandatory minimums do not make communities safer, but exacerbate mass incarceration,” the GLAA statement says. “The larger symbolic reductions in maximum sentences for certain crimes bring them in-line with actual practice [by judges], plus research demonstrates that the length of sentence is not an effective deterrent to most crime,” the GLAA statement continues.
“We should not give in to right-wing narratives that some wish to use to exert power over D.C. and return to ineffective and harmful approaches,” the statement concludes.
Longtime D.C. gay activist and former GLAA President Rick Rosendall has taken a similar position, saying in an email to the Blade that opposition to the bill is based on “alarmist talking points.” Rosendall pointed to the assertion by D.C. Council member Kenyan McDuffie (I-At-Large) that some provisions in the bill actually raise penalties and create new categories of crimes that make it easier for prosecutors to prove.
Another longtime LGBTQ rights advocate and Democratic Party activist Peter Rosenstein has taken a differing view. He says he fully agrees with Bowser’s decision to veto the crime bill and said the Council should not have passed the separate bill to allow non-U.S. citizen D.C. residents the right to vote in local D.C. elections.
“Lowering the maximum possible penalties for burglaries, carjackings (now at their highest) and robberies, while residents are seeing a crime wave, is irresponsible and won’t make the city safer,” Rosenstein said in a Washington Blade commentary. “If Congress takes action on these bills, the Council must accept the full blame,” he said. “While Congress shouldn’t interfere with the D.C. government (I have long advocated for budget and legislative autonomy for the District) we don’t have it yet.”
D.C. Congressional Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) has strongly criticized the House for passing the disapproval resolutions calling for overturning the crime bill and the noncitizen voting rights bill. She said she is alarmed that Republican members of the House and Senate are once again attempting to intervene and usurp the will of the democratically elected D.C. local government.
Norton noted that since Congress passed the D.C. Home Rule Act of 1971, creating the city’s elected mayor and Council – with Congress retaining the ability to make the final decision on all laws passed by the D.C. government – Congress has only used its power to overturn a D.C. law on three occasions over the past 40 years.
One of the three laws overturned by Congress was the Sexual Assault Reform Act of 1981, which called for repealing the city’s antiquated sodomy law that made it a crime for consenting same-sex adults and consenting heterosexual adult to engage in oral or anal sodomy. It took another 12 years for the Council to pass legislation repealing the D.C. sodomy law in 1993. At that time gay then-U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) played a lead role in persuading Congress not to overturn the sodomy repeal law once again.
But with states throughout the country now passing or considering anti-LGBTQ bills, including bills targeting transgender people and drag performances, the emboldened action by the U.S. House on Feb. 7 to overturn two bills passed by the D.C. Council raises the possibility that GOP lawmakers in Congress might attempt to impose anti-LGBTQ policies on the District.
Norton has pointed out that although Congress has so far overturned only three D.C. laws, it has also imposed restrictions on the city through its power to control the city’s budget and spending. Without needing approval by the Senate, the GOP-controlled House has in the past — and can at this time — add hostile provisions to the city’s annual budget bill.
In recent years, the House has used the budget process to ban D.C. funding for abortions for women in financial need and to block the city from allowing the sale of marijuana as part of D.C.’s legislation – which Congress allowed the city to pass – decriminalizing the possession of marijuana.
Most LGBTQ activists contacted by the Blade said they haven’t had a chance to read the entire 450-page Revised Criminal Code Act, but from what they have learned about the bill from media reports leads them to believe it most likely would not impact LGBTQ people any more or less than the overall D.C. population.
Some activists, however, point out that transgender women of color have been targeted for crimes in the D.C. area, including murder, in greater numbers than others in the community. And the release by D.C. police in January of the city’s data on reported hate crimes in 2022 show that similar to the past 10 years or more, LGBTQ people were targeted for hate crimes in greater numbers than other categories of victims of hate crimes such as race, ethnicity, or religion.
“I’m not certain what contributes to the uptick in some types of calls that we’ve seen or some of the crimes that we’ve seen,” said D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee in response to a question from the Blade about what, if anything, police can do to address hate crimes targeting LGBTQ people.
“But our commitment is to investigate those cases thoroughly and hold people accountable when we identify people who are responsible for those types of crimes,” Contee said. “Our LGBT community is something special, not just to Washington, D.C. but to the Metropolitan Police Department,” he said. “They have a strong relationship with our Special Liaison Branch,” he noted, which oversees the department’s LGBT Liaison Unit.
“So, we’re going to continue to do the things we need to do to make sure that those calls are coming in and people are trusting us to report these crimes to us,” Contee told the Blade. “And again, we do everything we can to investigate those crimes.”
District of Columbia
D.C. Council urged to improve ‘weakened’ PrEP insurance bill
AIDS group calls for changes before full vote on Feb. 3
The D.C.-based HIV + Hepatitis Policy Institute is calling on the D.C. Council to reverse what it says was the “unfortunate” action by a Council committee to weaken a bill aimed at requiring health insurance companies to cover the costs of HIV prevention or PrEP drugs for D.C. residents at risk for HIV infection.
HIV + HEP Policy Institute Executive Director Carl Schmid points out in a Jan. 30 email message to all 13 D.C. Council members that the Council’s Committee on Health on Dec. 8, 2025, voted to change the PrEP DC Act of 2025, Bill 26-0159, to require insurers to fully cover only one PrEP drug regimen.
Schmid noted the bill as originally written and introduced Feb. 28, 2025, by Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5), the Council’s only gay member, required insurers to cover all PrEP drugs, including the newest PrEP medication taken by injection once every six months.
Schmid’s message to the Council members was sent on Friday, Jan. 30, just days before the Council was scheduled to vote on the bill on Feb. 3. He contacted the Washington Blade about his concerns about the bill as changed by committee that same day.
Spokespersons for Parker and the Committee on Health and its chairperson, Council member Christina Henderson (I-At-Large) didn’t immediately respond to the Blade’s request for comment on the issue, saying they were looking into the matter and would try to provide a response on Monday, Jan. 2.
In his message to Council members, Schmid also noted that he and other AIDS advocacy groups strongly supported the committee’s decision to incorporate into the bill a separate measure introduced by Council member Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2) that would prohibit insurers, including life insurance companies, from denying coverage to people who are on PrEP.
“We appreciate the Committee’s revisions to the bill that incorporates Bill 26-0101, which prohibits discrimination by insurance carriers based on PrEP use,” Schmid said in his statement to all Council members.
“However, the revised PrEP coverage provision would actually reduce PrEP options for D.C. residents that are required by current federal law, limit patient choice, and place D.C. behind states that have enacted HIV prevention policies designed to remain in effect regardless of any federal changes,” Schmid added.
He told the Washington Blade that although these protections are currently provided through coverage standards recommended in the U.S. Affordable Care Act, AIDS advocacy organizations have called for D.C. and states to pass their own legislation requiring insurance coverage of PrEP in the event that the federal policies are weakened or removed by the Trump administration, which has already reduced or ended federal funding for HIV/AIDS-related programs.
“The District of Columbia has always been a leader in the fight against HIV,” Schmid said in a statement to Council members. But in a separate statement he sent to the Blade, Schmid said the positive version of the bill as introduced by Parker and the committee’s incorporation of the Pinto bill were in stark contrast to the “bad side — the bill would only require insurers to cover one PrEP drug.”
He added, “That is far worse than current federal requirements. Obviously, the insurers got to them.”
The Committee on Health’s official report on the bill summarizes testimony in support of the bill by health-related organizations, including Whitman-Walker Health, and two D.C. government officials before the committee at an Oct. 30, 2025, public hearing.
Among them were Clover Barnes, Senior Deputy Director of the D.C. HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis, STD, and TB Administration, and Philip Barlow, Associate Commissioner for the D.C. Department of Insurance, Securities, and Banking.
Although both Barnes and Barlow expressed overall support for the bill, Barlow suggested several changes, one of which could be related to the committee’s change of the bill described by Schmid, according to the committee report.
“First, he recommended changing the language that required PrEP and PEP coverage by insurers to instead require that insurers who already cover PrEP and PEP do not impose cost sharing or coverage more restrictive than other treatments,” the committee report states. “He pointed out that D.C. insurers already cover PrEP and PEP as preventive services, and this language would avoid unintended costs for the District,” the report adds.
PEP refers to Post-Exposure Prophylaxis medication, while PrEP stands for Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis medication.
In response to a request from the Blade for comment, Daniel Gleick, Mayor Muriel Bowser’s press secretary, said he would inquire about the issue in the mayor’s office.
Naseema Shafi, Whitman-Walker Health’s CEO, meanwhile, in response to a request by the Blade for comment, released a statement sharing Schmid’s concerns about the current version of the PrEP DC Act of 2025, which the Committee on Health renamed as the PrEP DC Amendment Act of 2025.
“Whitman-Walker Health believes that all residents of the District of Columbia should have access to whatever PrEP method is best for them based on their conversations with their providers,” Shafi said. “We would not want to see limitations on what insurers would cover,” she added. “Those kinds of limitations lead to significantly reduced access and will be a major step backwards, not to mention undermining the critical progress that the Affordable Care Act enabled for HIV prevention,” she said.
The Blade will update this story as soon as additional information is obtained from the D.C. Council members involved with the bill, especially Parker. The Blade will report on whether the full Council makes the changes to the bill requested by Schmid and others before it votes on whether to approve it at its Feb. 3 legislative session.
District of Columbia
Eleanor Holmes Norton ends 2026 reelection campaign
Longtime LGBTQ rights supporter introduced, backed LGBTQ-supportive legislation
The reelection campaign for D.C. Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, who has been an outspoken supporter of LGBTQ rights since first taking office in 1991, filed a termination report on Jan. 25 with the Federal Elections Commission, indicating she will not run for a 19th term in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Norton’s decision not to run again, which was first reported by the online news publication NOTUS, comes at a time when many of her longtime supporters questioned her ability to continue in office at the age of 88.
NOTUS cited local political observers who pointed out that Norton has in the past year or two curtailed public appearances and, according to critics, has not taken sufficient action to oppose efforts by the Trump-Vance administration and Republican members of Congress to curtail D.C.’s limited home rule government.
Those same critics, however, have praised Norton for her 35-year tenure as the city’s non-voting delegate in the House and as a champion for a wide range of issues of interest to D.C. LGBTQ rights advocates have also praised her longstanding support for LGBTQ rights issues both locally and nationally.
D.C. gay Democratic Party activist Cartwright Moore, who has worked on Norton’s congressional staff from the time she first took office in 1991 until his retirement in 2021, points out that Norton’s role as a staunch LGBTQ ally dates back to the 1970s when she served as head of the New York City Commission on Human Rights.
“The congresswoman is a great person,” Moore told the Washington Blade in recounting his 30 years working on her staff, most recently as senior case worker dealing with local constituent issues.
Norton has been among the lead co-sponsors and outspoken supporters of LGBTQ rights legislation introduced in Congress since first taking office, including the currently pending Equality Act, which would ban employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
She has introduced multiple LGBTQ supportive bills, including her most recent bill introduced in June 2025, the District of Columbia Local Juror Non-Discrimination Act, which would ban D.C. residents from being disqualified from jury service in D.C. Superior Court based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.
For many years, Norton has marched in the city’s annual Pride parade.
Her decision not to run for another term in office also comes at a time when, for the first time in many years, several prominent candidates emerged to run against her in the June 2026 D.C. Democratic primary. Among them are D.C. Council members Robert White (D-At-Large) and Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2).
Others who have announced their candidacy for Norton’s seat include Jacque Patterson, president of the D.C. State Board of Education; Kinney Zalesne, a local Democratic party activist; and Trent Holbrook, who until recently served as Norton’s senior legislative counsel.
“For more than three decades, Congresswoman Norton has been Washington, D.C.’s steadfast warrior on Capitol Hill, a relentless advocate for our city’s right to self-determination, full democracy, and statehood,” said Oye Owolewa, the city’s elected U.S. shadow representative in a statement. “At every pivotal moment, she has stood firm on behalf of D.C. residents, never wavering in her pursuit of justice, equity, and meaningful representation for a city too often denied its rightful voice,” he said.
A spokesperson for Norton’s soon-to-close re-election campaign couldn’t immediately be reached for a comment by Norton on her decision not to seek another term in office.
District of Columbia
Judge denies D.C. request to dismiss gay police captain’s anti-bias lawsuit
MPD accused of illegally demoting officer for taking family leave to care for newborn child
A U.S. District Court judge on Jan. 21 denied a request by attorneys representing the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a gay captain accusing police officials of illegally demoting him for taking parental leave to join his husband in caring for their newborn son.
The lawsuit filed by Capt. Paul Hrebenak charges that police officials violated the U.S. Family and Medical Leave Act, a similar D.C. family leave law, and the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause by refusing to allow him to return to his position as director of the department’s School Safety Division upon his return from parental leave.
It says police officials transferred Hrebenak to another police division against his wishes, which was a far less desirable job and was the equivalent of a demotion, even though it had the same pay grade as his earlier job.
In response to a motion filed by attorneys with the Office of the D.C. Attorney General, which represents and defends D.C. government agencies against lawsuits, Judge Randolph D. Moss agreed to dismiss seven of the lawsuit’s 14 counts or claims but left in place six counts.
Scott Lempert, the attorney representing Hrebenak, said he and Hrebenak agreed to drop one of the 14 counts prior to the Jan. 21 court hearing.
“He did not dismiss the essential claims in this case,” Lempert told the Washington Blade. “So, we won is the short answer. We defeated the motion to dismiss the case.”
Gabriel Shoglow, a spokesperson for the Office of the D.C. Attorney General, said the office has a policy of not commenting on pending litigation and it would not comment on the judge’s ruling upholding six of the lawsuit’s initial 14 counts.
In issuing his ruling from the bench, Moss gave Lempert the option of filing an amended complaint by March 6 to seek the reinstatement of the counts he dismissed. He gave attorneys for the D.C. attorney general’s office a deadline of March 20 to file a response to an amended complaint.
Lempert told the Blade he and Hrebenak have yet to decide whether to file an amended complaint or whether to ask the judge to move the case ahead to a jury trial, which they initially requested.
In its 26-page motion calling for dismissal of the case, filed on May 30, 2025, D.C. Office of the Attorney General attorneys argue that the police department has legal authority to transfer its officers, including captains, to a different job. It says that Hrebenak’s transfer to a position of watch commander at the department’s First District was fully equivalent in status to his job as director of the School Safety Division.
“The Watch Commander position is not alleged to have changed plaintiff’s rank of captain or his benefits or pay, and thus plaintiff has not plausibly alleged that he was put in a non-equivalent position,” the motion to dismiss states.
“Thus, his reassignment is not a demotion,” it says. “And the fact that his shift changed does not mean that the position is not equivalent to his prior position. The law does not require that every single aspect of the positions be the same.”
Hrebenak’s lawsuit states that “straight” police officers have routinely taken similar family and parental leave to care for a newborn child and have not been transferred to a different job. According to the lawsuit, the School Safety Division assignment allowed him to work a day shift, a needed shift for his recognized disability of Crohn’s Disease, which the lawsuit says is exacerbated by working late hours at night.
The lawsuit points out that Hrebenak disclosed he had Crohn’s Disease at the time he applied for his police job, and it was determined he could carry out his duties as an officer despite this ailment, which was listed as a disability.
Among other things, the lawsuit notes that Hrebenak had a designated reserved parking space for his earlier job and lost the parking space for the job to which he was transferred.
“Plaintiff’s removal as director at MPD’s School Safety Division was a targeted, premeditated punishment for his taking statutorily protected leave as a gay man,” the lawsuit states. “There was no operational need by MPD to remove plaintiff as director of MPD’s School Safety Division, a position in which plaintiff very successfully served for years,” it says.
In another action to strengthen Hrebenak’s opposition to the city’s motion to dismiss the case, Lempert filed with the court on Jan. 15 a “Notice of Supplemental Authority” that included two controversial reports that Lempert said showed that former D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith put in place a policy of involuntary police transfers “to effectively demote and end careers of personnel who had displeased Chief Smith and or others in MPD leadership.”
One of the reports was prepared by the Republican members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the other was prepared by the office of Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for D.C. appointed by President Donald Trump.
Both reports allege that Smith, who resigned from her position as chief effective Dec. 31, pressured police officials to change crime reporting data to make it appear that the number of violent crimes was significantly lower than it actually was by threatening to transfer them to undesirable positions in the department. Smith has denied those claims.
“These findings support plaintiff’s arguments that it was the policy or custom of MPD to inflict involuntary transfers on MPD personnel as retaliation for doing or saying something in which leadership disapproved,” Lempert says in his court filing submitting the two reports.
“As shown, many officers suffered under this pervasive custom, including Capt. Hrebenak,” he stated. “Accordingly, by definition, transferred positions were not equivalent to officers’ previous positions,” he added.
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