Mike Garcia: “Mr. Speaker, once again, we are back with a second bill to undermine Washington, D.C., with an undemocratic and…”

“Mr. Speaker, once again, we are back with a second bill to undermine Washington, D.C., with an undemocratic and misguided policy. Republicans in Congress are once more acting again as a city council for D.C., overriding the choices of local residents and their elected officials, while ignoring the real issues the rest of the country faces. Nearly 700,000 taxpaying Americans in D.C. deserve the same right to self-governance as every other community including control over criminal laws. Democrats on the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform strongly oppose this bill, which would allow children as young as 14 years old to be charged as adults. Let's be clear. This bill is not about safety. It is about stripping away judicial discretion and sending more children into the adult prison system. This bill lowers the age at which children can be tried as adults in D.C. from 16 to 14 years old for certain crimes. If a crime is committed, a person should be held accountable. We all can agree on this. A 14-year-old is not an adult. They are middle schoolers. Their brains are still developing. Treating them as adults is shameful. We can all agree that children should be treated differently by our courts. That matters when it comes to accountability and rehabilitation. Here is what the research shows. Youth charged as adults are more likely to reoffend than youth that go through the juvenile courts. That is not speculation.…”