Analysis: Why Biden flipped a 180 on DC’s ability to self-govern

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CNN
 — 

President Joe Biden is siding with Republicans and moderate Democrats to slap down local leaders of Washington, DC, as they try to update a 100-year-old criminal code that is showing its age.

Progressive Democrats are furious about the message this sends on criminal justice reform, and some DC residents feel betrayed by the president who lives in their midst.

But the headline version of this story, while it neatly fits the Republican political narrative that American cities are crime-infested and rotting, is incomplete.

Except for Biden’s move betraying DC residents who want to govern themselves. That part is hard to argue with.

The basic points are these:

DC’s local government has been trying for years to…