The House of Representatives on Tuesday evening failed to override President Joe Biden’s veto of a Republican-sponsored resolution that would have blocked a police discipline and accountability bill passed by the D.C. Council. The vote was 233-197 on mostly partisan lines, falling short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto.

The failed override vote marks the end of a long saga involving a bill that city lawmakers first passed in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by police in the summer of 2020, but more recently became ensnared in national political debates over increases in some violent crimes in U.S. cities and hiring challenges faced by many police departments.

The D.C. bill imposes new restrictions on the use of chokeholds, requires that body camera footage from police shootings be made public within five days, limits the use of tear gas and chemical sprays during protests, removes disciplinary matters from collective bargaining with the D.C. Police Union, creates a public database of sustained police misconduct cases, and strengthens the independent Office of Police Complaints, among other things.

Advocates said the bill contained common-sense reforms that largely mirrored federal legislation approved by Democrats when they controlled the House, but Republicans and the police union argued that it hamstrung police and would make hiring and retaining officers more difficult. The union waged a fierce political and legal battle against the legislation, targeting the provision that removed disciplinary matters from collective bargaining.

The push to block the bill from taking effect easily cleared the House in April, and was later approved by the Democratic Senate. But Biden stuck to his promise that he would veto the congressional resolution, with a White House official saying last month that “we have an obligation to make sure that all people are safe and that public safety depends on public trust.”

In a statement, D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton celebrated the failure of the push to override Biden’s veto.

“The disapproval resolution is a profoundly undemocratic and paternalistic piece of legislation. Almost 700,000 people live in the nation’s capital, and they are worthy and capable of governing their own local affairs,” she said. “From their behavior this Congress, I can only surmise that House Republicans disagree with me, believing instead that D.C. residents, a majority of whom are Black and Brown, are incapable and unworthy of the same respect afforded to residents of their own districts. I cannot emphasize strongly enough how offensive that notion is to my values, goals, and more than 30 years of work advocating for D.C. residents in Congress. The president was correct in vetoing the disapproval resolution. Congress should leave all decisions about local D.C. laws to D.C. residents.”

The Republican-led House has taken a more aggressive approach towards interfering in D.C.’s local affairs since January, and worked to successfully block a sweeping bill that would have revised the city’s century-old criminal code. In that case, Biden did not wield his veto pen.

More recently, Republicans have said they are drafting a bill that would make significant changes to how D.C. residents register to vote and cast ballots by doing away with same-day voter registration, scaling back on mail voting and ballot drop boxes, and requiring that voters show photo ID at the polls.