During a recent hearing of the House Oversight Committee dealing with recent policy moves by the government of the city of Washington, D.C., Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) was majorly struggling.
“It’s clear that far-left policies driven by progressive D.C. council members are having a deteriorating effect on education standards, rising crime, and increased financial instability in our nation’s capital,” Boebert claimed.
She proceeded to angrily rant at witnesses before her about funding — and a supposed lack thereof — for police officers in D.C. serving with the city’s Metropolitan Police Department. She sounded rather intent on creating sound bites for the right-wing media ecosystem in telling one witness, “Sir, you are ‘defund the police’!” In subsequent remarks, she noted — with an air of intense anger — that homicides ostensibly increased in the nation’s capital in specified recent periods… which it appeared was exactly what a member of the D.C. city council appearing as a witness had just acknowledged. In a choice moment that really captured the atmosphere, Boebert angrily addressed the chairman of that council, who was also appearing as a witness — and mispronounced his name. The official corrected her, leading to audible laughs in the background.
She also fumbled basic facts, asking the other member of the council about whether revisions to the criminal code in D.C. had been put into place… revisions that, in very public proceedings, Congress already rejected, having been provided oversight over the city’s government in connection to its unique political status. The witness and the chairman both noted as much, and Boebert seemed flustered, leading her into questions about public urination. “Mr. Allen, did you or did you not decriminalize public urination in Washington, D.C.?” Boebert asked. (Charles Allen was the member of the council other than the chairman present as a witness and to whom Boebert was mostly speaking.) Allen explained they hadn’t done so. “The revised criminal code left that as a criminal charge,” Allen noted, referring to what it seemed had been rejected by Congress (over other concerns).
After, through Boebert’s incessant questioning, Allen finally got out (yet again) the same statement of fact, the Congresswoman asked: “And you support this?” “I voted for it, yeah,” the councilman said. Things really didn’t go anywhere. Allen, sounding unimpressed, explained that members of the council agreed to leave public urination as a criminal rather than civil offense at the mayor’s request, and Boebert abruptly handed the proceedings back to the chairman. Check out a clip below:
If you aren't watching House Republicans' hearing on the District of Columbia you are missing sober consideration of weighty matters of state pic.twitter.com/MFq0u9zwfw
— Aaron Fritschner (@Fritschner) March 29, 2023
