House Republicans grilled D.C. officials on crime and the city’s financial state during a testy four-hour congressional hearing on Wednesday, accusing them of defunding the police department and sparking a “crime crisis” Congress was forced to step in to address.

Democrats countered by accusing Republicans of wanting to serve as a “535-member city council.” The three D.C. officials invited to testify spent time clarifying misconceptions about how the city is managed, insisting that it suffered the same public safety and police hiring challenges as many other American cities, and offering suggestions on how Congress could truly assist them in making D.C. safer for all.

But the calls fell on deaf ears, and late in the afternoon Republicans instead approved a resolution to block a bill passed by the D.C. Council making permanent discipline and accountability measures on police originally passed as emergency legislation in 2020. They include requiring body camera footage from police shootings to be made public within five days, banning chokeholds, limiting the use of tear gas and chemical sprays during protests, removing disciplinary matters from collective bargaining with the police union, and creating a public database of sustained police misconduct cases.

The hearing in the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability represented another escalation in the Republicans’ interference into D.C.’s local affairs, which has so far included demands to visit the Jan. 6 detainees held in the D.C. Jail and the successful effort over the past two months to block a bill passed unanimously by the council revising the city’s century-old criminal code.

It also gave Republicans another opportunity to use D.C. to broadly paint Democrats as being “soft on crime” and anti-police, an accusation the GOP hopes will translate into national electoral victories in the 2024 cycle, just as it helped them win back the House of Representatives last year.

“Our nation’s capital has deteriorated and declined. Crime has risen dramatically, education levels have plummeted, and the city’s finances are in disarray. D.C. officials have not carried out their responsibility to serve their citizens. Therefore, our committee must fulfill its responsibility to conduct oversight of the District of Columbia,” said Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky), the committee chair. “We must, for its residents, our constituents who visit from across the country, and those who work in this city. They deserve a safe and prosperous city.”

But Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland), the ranking Democratic member of the committee, insisted that the Republican offers of oversight were little more than pretexts for politically motivated intervention in the city’s affairs. “This hearing, which was called to malign the people of D.C. and their leaders for criminal violence our colleagues will do nothing to stop, should instead be a hearing to move statehood,” he said. “The people of Washington are independent and self-governing and want statehood.”

Those complaints were echoed by other Democrats, who pushed back on Republicans’ claims that they were only doing their constitutional duty in overseeing the nation’s capital.

“Congressional interference is not a duty, it’s a choice — and a bad one,” said Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio).

“I have no interest in telling Mississippi or Louisiana or Texas how to run their states, and my colleagues should not be involved in the business of trying to involve [themselves in] how a city actually runs their operations,” echoed Rep. Robert Garcia (D-California).

“There are 332 million people [in this country] yet we are spending hours and hours intruding on home rule of a city that is capable of governing itself,” said Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-New York), who grew up in the city. “I get we have jurisdiction. The question is, what’s the best use of our time?”

But Republicans brushed those arguments aside, setting their sights on crime in D.C.

“It is not safe. It is the least safe it has ever been,” said Rep. William Timmons (R-South Carolina).

While certain violent crimes like homicides and carjackings are up over last year, overall violent crime was relatively flat — and remains far below what it was a decade ago. Additionally, the number of homicides is half what it was in the early 1990s, when the city was known as the nation’s “murder capital.” Still, Republicans pointed to high-profile crimes — like the recent stabbing of a staffer from Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Kentucky) office over the weekend on H Street NE — to argue that nowhere in the city is safe.

“It’s going to get worse. The word on the street is D.C. is a good destination because prosecution is virtually zero and crime is rampant. What you’ve created in this liberal haven, it’s going to get worse!” said Rep. Clay Higgins (R-Louisiana).

“Washington, D.C. at this time of year is really amazing. You see spring is in the air. The cherry blossoms are coming,” said Rep. Russell Fry (R-South Carolina), referring to the large number of tourists who visit the city in the spring. “But instead of these images that they see on National Geographic or wherever, they get here and they see carjackings, shootings, homicides, robberies, auto theft, arson, riots, I could go on.” (The last riot in D.C. occured on Jan. 6, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol.)

Those Republicans were supported by testimony from Gregg Pemberton, the head of the D.C. Police Union, which represents some 3,300 police officers. He said that bills and rhetoric from the council had spurred a “mass exodus of sworn law enforcement officers and an exponential increase in violent crime.” There are currently 500 fewer police officers than two years ago, and hiring is not keeping pace with attrition.

“They’ve been chasing headlines and jumped on the bandwagon of anti-police rhetoric from across the country,” he said of the city’s lawmakers.

Speaking on behalf of D.C., Council Chairman Phil Mendelson conceded that crime was a public concern — but far less so than the Republican portrayal. A recent Washington Post poll found that while residents say they are concerned about homicides and carjackings, three of four of them say they generally feel safe in the city.

“With regard to crime, yes, there is considerable concern. But while perception is important, the reality is less concerning. Let me be clear: people should feel safe, and it is a problem that many residents of the District don’t. But the number of violent crime incidents in 2022 was 45% lower than a decade earlier, and total violent crime last year was 7% less than the year before,” he said. “I know this belies the common belief, and when it comes to crime how people feel is important, but there is not a ‘crime crisis’ in Washington, D.C.”

Councilmember Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), who was repeatedly peppered with questions over whether he defunded the police department in 2020 (he responded that the agency saw a 1% cut to its operating budget), similarly conceded that addressing public safety was critical. But he noted that conditions out of the city’s control also have to be considered, including gun trafficking from surrounding states and the fact that D.C. felons serve their sentences in federal prisons — and often do not have access to services or community connections to facilitate their return to the city.

“It’s also our reality that meaningful progress is confounded by the absurdity of the District’s criminal justice system — which is within Congress’s power to remedy. You couldn’t have designed a more complicated and unsafe system if you tried,” he said. “For example, we have a local police department, but almost all adult crimes are prosecuted by the federally appointed U.S. Attorney. This position is unaccountable to D.C. residents. We can’t control whether an arrest is papered or tried in court — frankly, we aren’t even respected enough to be told the outcome of a case on our block.”

His comments came on the same day The Washington Post published a story on the fact that the U.S. Attorney for D.C. has declined to prosecute two-thirds of cases brought by D.C. police. Both Mendelson and Allen said they would appreciate congressional involvement on this issue; Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) said the committee would send the U.S. Attorney’s office a letter, but another Republican member said making any changes was “a longer conversation” he wasn’t going to have during the hearing.

Beyond the moments of honest disagreements, the hearing was punctuated by instances of at times absurd misunderstanding and misinformation.

Comer opined that D.C.’s finances were in “disarray”; D.C. Chief Financial Officer Glen Lee noted that while the city faces “economic headwinds” because of inflation and remote work, D.C. is in the “strongest financial position” in its history. Multiple Republicans demanded to know how many council hearings Allen had held on violent crime this year; Allen informed them he no longer chaired the committee that would hold those hearings.

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tennessee) inquired as to why the four D.C. witnesses at the hearing were white men in a city that’s almost 50% Black; Mendelson informed him it was Republicans who chose to invite them. When Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) demanded to know whether the city’s revised criminal code had taken effect, Allen reminded her that Congress had blocked it. And when Rep. Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina) asked why car thefts have spiked dramatically in D.C., she rejected Mendelson’s argument the social media-fueled targeting of Hyundais and Kias was largely at fault. “So you want to blame TikTok?” she said incredulously. (South Carolina has seen a similar uptick in thefts of the cars.)

At one point, Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Alabama) pointedly asked Allen why he had introduced a bill to allow 25-year-olds to be charged as minors; Allen informed him no such bill ever existed. Palmer also insisted that many homicides in D.C. are committed with weapons other than guns; data shows that an overwhelming majority involve guns.

Palmer also derided the city’s public schools. “You’ve got crappy schools. Not only are your schools dropout factories, they’re inmate factories,” he said. (His comments prompted a tweet from Mayor Muriel Bowser, who was not invited to the hearing, about progress in the city’s school system. Both Mendelson and Allen told the committee their children attended D.C. Public Schools.)

Ultimately, though, the Republican-led committee voted to advance a resolution blocking the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act, a police accountability and discipline bill the council first passed on an emergency basis after George Floyd’s murder by police in 2020 and has now moved to make permanent. D.C. Police Union head Pemberton said that the bill would only make hiring police harder. “We just can’t keep up with the crime. We can’t keep up with the demand. The response times are going up. We don’t have enough detectives,” he said.

D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton said police hiring was a challenge nationwide, and Mendelson said the police union had been waging a fight against the bill because of a single provision removing discipline from collective bargaining. “Contrary to what some would say, this legislation is not an attack on police or a threat to public safety. Rather, it promotes police accountability,” he said.

But Republicans disagreed, advancing the resolution to the full House. (It will also need to get a vote in the Senate.)

Looking forward, Comer said more hearings were to come; he said Bowser was being invited to speak to the committee in mid-May. And he offered to continue working with D.C. officials to address crime, but stressed the relationship would not be on a level playing field.

“We want to work with you,” he said. “And you’re going to have to work with us.”