Photo by Kevin Wolf.

Republicans on Capitol Hill moved today to block D.C. from implementing legislation that would allow doctors to prescribe life-ending drugs to terminally ill patients.

Senator James Lankford (R-OK) and Congressman Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) introduced companion resolutions of disapproval for the Death with Dignity bill, one in the Senate and the other in the House of Representatives. Lankford, who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management, which oversees D.C., called the bill “too broad and illegal.”

D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton fired back in a statement that “unaccountable Members of Congress have no business legislating on the local affairs of our jurisdiction.” She expressed disappointment with Lankford specifically, noting that “I have worked successfully with him on federal matters affecting the District, including reforms and improvement to the D.C. courts.”

Wenstrup said that he was motivated to action by his 25-year career as a doctor.

“If Congress fails to act on this, it will imply tacit federal approval of physician-assisted suicide—and I firmly believe that is not the right path,” Wenstrup said in a statement.

Whatever Wenstrup thinks about the issue, councilmembers elected by D.C. residents voted 11-2 in favor of the bill, which Mayor Muriel Bowser signed in December.

According to advocates, more than two-thirds of D.C. voters favor doctor-assisted suicide, which roughly lines up with the national average.

“Since they believe medical aid-in dying is bad policy, Senator Lankford and Representative Wenstrup should advocate their positions on the national stage, where Congress has clear jurisdiction, and introduce bills to prohibit physicians nationwide from prescribing lethal doses of medication, instead of singling the District out for different treatment,” said Norton.

Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), who chairs the House committee that oversees D.C., vowed earlier in the week to block the bill’s passage, which came as no surprise to Norton.

“We expected opposition here in the House to D.C.’s ‘Death with Dignity’ bill, as we routinely get opposition to laws passed by the District of Columbia that are at odds with views of Members of Congress who do not represent the District,” Norton said in a statement. “I intend to fight all efforts to block the bill and to prevail.”

Norton is accustomed to fighting off GOP attempts to meddle in District affairs on issues like abortion, guns, marijuana, and more. Those attempts more frequently come in the form of budget riders attached to large spending bills than via disapproval resolution.

Congress has 30 legislative days to review D.C. legislation before it can become law. If the House and Senate pass the disapproval resolution and the president signs it within that time span, the original bill gets blocked.

Only three disapproval resolutions have ever passed, though Chaffetz attempted to overturn D.C.’s Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Act using that process in April 2015. While the disapproval resolution passed in the House, it was never taken up in the Senate, so the bill became law.

“These guys use the District of Columbia as a testing ground for their own political agenda,” says D.C. Shadow Senator Michael Brown. “We end up being the whipping boy for a lot of these conservatives and it’s terrible.”

Six states—Oregon, Vermont, Washington, Montana, Colorado, and California—already have Death with Dignity laws on the books.

“Under this new law, if D.C. residents are not able to pay for health care out of pocket, they may find their options severely limited when facing a new diagnosis, suffering from a chronic illness, facing a disability, or struggling with mental illness,” said Wenstrup, who has voted numerous times to repeal the Affordable Care Act.