Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.

Update: Meadows’ legislation to repeal the Local Budget Autonomy Amendment Act passed in the House of Representatives.

Original: Amid two separate pieces of legislation in the House of Representatives that seek to repeal D.C. budget autonomy, Speaker Paul Ryan stepped into the fray to insist that Congress needs to control the District purse strings.

“The current D.C. government is running fast and loose with the Constitution,” Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, writes in a statement.

Ryan says that the District having control over its own locally raised funds has consequences, but can only name one. “The D.C. government wants to use revenues to fund abortions in the District,” the statement says. “House Republicans will not stand for that.”

Ryan promises that today the House will pass legislation introduced by Congressman Mark Meadows (R-NC) that would repeal D.C. budget autonomy, preemptively repeal this year’s budget, and amend the Home Rule Act to prevent future legislation on the issue. It’s less clear whether it will pass in the Senate, where D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton has vowed to fight it. President Obama issued a veto threat over the legislation, as well.

The president’s statement of administration policy notes one consequence of not having budget autonomy. “Subjecting the District to the lengthy and uncertain congressional appropriations process for its use of local tax collections imposes both operational and financial hardships on the District, burdens not borne by any other local government in the country,” it says.

In a speech on the House floor today, Norton referred to Republican legislators as “despots” for imposing their will on D.C. residents and refusing to allow a vote on her amendment, which would have made the budget autonomy part of federal law.

Congressman Elijah Cummings (D-MD), ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, also spoke out against the bill on the floor. “I do not believe there is a member of Congress who would stand for the federal government dictating the local budget of a city in his or her district, and D.C. should be treated no differently. Granting D.C. local budget autonomy is not only the right thing to do, it would also have significant financial benefits for the District, such as lower borrowing costs,” he said.

However, Meadows’ legislation isn’t the only one seeking to repeal budget autonomy for the District. A federal draft appropriations bill also “continues to appropriate the District’s local funds.” It contains provisions that block the use of federal or local funds for abortions, or toward full implementation of D.C.’s cannabis laws, and prevents the use of federal funds towards needle exchanges in the city.

And that bill must pass to keep the federal government funded in 2017, though the Senate will write its own version and the two chambers will negotiate to create the final legislation.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a statement yesterday that she has been executing the law, as is her job. “The American people expect their congressional representatives to focus on the issues affecting our nation—safety and security, fair wages, and growing the middle class—not on the local budget of D.C.”

Filed Under: budget autonomy, initiative 71, meanwhile on capitol hill, needle exchange, paul ryan, speaker ryan, statehood, weed,