The crowd at a Monday “Hands Off D.C.” rally. (Photo by Rachel Kurzius)

D.C. lawmakers are celebrating after legislation to allow physicians to prescribe medical aid in dying survived attacks from Republican members of Congress and will be implemented starting on Saturday.

“Today we note our first victory in our battle to defend the Death with Dignity Act from overbearing and undemocratic congressional attacks,” said D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton in a statement. “However, our defense of the Death with Dignity Act is only beginning.”

Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), the chair of the committee charged with D.C. oversight, pledged to overturn the law. A few days later, Republican colleagues in the House and Senate introduced disapproval resolutions, which would bar the District bill from ever becoming law.

The Death with Dignity bill passed the council 11-2 and even the only “no” vote still on the council, Ward 1’s Brianne Nadeau, spoke out against Congressional overreach in its attempts to strike down the bill.

“When I put my John Hancock on that law, it should be the law of the land,” said Mayor Muriel Bowser at a “Hands Off D.C.” rally on Monday evening. But under the Home Rule Act, that’s not how it works. Instead, all D.C. legislation must pass a 30-day Congressional review period.

Most of the time, nothing happens during that time and the bill becomes law shortly thereafter. But if a disapproval resolution passes both chambers and gets signed by the president within that 30-day window, it blocks the legislation from taking effect. (Seriously, people we don’t elect have the power to do this to our laws.)

Chaffetz has, over the years, taken a liking to the disapproval resolution process. He’s tried to use them to block D.C.’s medicinal marijuana program and, more recently, to block a law that made it illegal to discriminate against people for their reproductive health choices. He has yet to succeed, though. The last president to sign a disapproval resolution was George H.W. Bush.

While a disapproval resolution for Death with Dignity passed the House Oversight Committee on Monday, it never made it to a vote on the House floor (where Norton doesn’t have a vote) or to mark-up in a Senate committee. Thirty legislative days passed on Friday, though Norton acknowledged that “House and Senate parliamentarians are the arbiters” of when the deadline lapses. Even so, Chaffetz has admitted defeat for now.

For those keeping track at home, that means this attempt at scraping away D.C. autonomy was even less successful than Chaffetz’s 2015 bid to block D.C.’s Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Amendment Act, which ultimately passed the full House before dying in the Senate.

Republicans in the House did, however, use the budgeting process to try and prevent the bill from getting funded.

All the likely candidates, like Chaffetz and Maryland Congressman Andy Harris, have said they’ll use appropriations to stymie the D.C. medical aid in dying law, as well.

“D.C. residents and local officials have shown they are ready to fight to defend our local democracy,” said Norton. “We intend to win as we did last Congress when we successfully protected D.C.’s local anti-discrimination law.”