Congressional Republicans took aim Wednesday at the District of Columbia City Council, the city’s public schools, its surging crime and alleged mismanagement in City Hall as they advanced a resolution seeking to overturn a council vote for the second time in a month.
In a quarrelsome House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing titled “Overdue Oversight of the Capital City: Part 1,” Republicans such as Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene described Washington as an urban hellscape where criminals “run rampant” and schools do more to produce criminals than to teach math or reading.
“You’ve got some crappy schools,” Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Ala., told the panel’s witnesses, who included D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson, Councilmember Charles Allen, Washington Chief Financial Officer Glen Lee and D.C. Police Union Chairman Greggory Pemberton. “Your schools are not only dropout factories, they’re inmate factories.”
