The GOP-led House passed on Tuesday a bill to prohibit noncitizens from voting in local Washington, D.C., elections, overcoming the majority of Democrats who voted against the measure.

A total of 210 Republicans and 56 Democrats supported the legislation, which bars foreign nationals from voting in local contests in the nation’s capital and repeals a measure passed by the D.C. Council in 2022 that allowed it in the first place. Another 148 Democrats voted against it.

“Free and fair elections are a prerequisite for a healthy republic. The radical DC Council’s decision to allow noncitizens — including illegal aliens and foreign agents — to vote in local elections dilutes the voting power of the citizen voter,” said Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX), who introduced the House bill.

“That power must be defended, and I am thrilled House Republicans took action today to do so,” Pfluger added. “Anyone who voted against this legislation, voted for the transfer of political power away from legal voters. With the House passage of my legislation, we are one step closer to restoring the sanctity of the voting process to ensure that only American citizens are voting in our nation’s capital.”

In 2023, the House passed a resolution from Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) to block the enactment of the D.C. measure via the Home Rule Act. However, the Democrats who controlled the Senate at the time did not take up the resolution and the bill went into effect. Last year, the House passed a similar bill from Pfluger, but it met a similar fate.

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Now that Republicans control both chambers of Congress, Democrats have been relegated to voting in the minority on party-line issues and otherwise can voice their dismay when they do not get their way — as did Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District’s non-voting delegate in the House.

“Republicans refuse to make the only election law change D.C. has requested: making D.C. a state so that it can hold elections for voting members of the House and Senate,” Norton said in a statement.

Noncitizens are not allowed to vote in federal elections, but they are allowed to for certain local contests in some municipalities in states like California, Maryland, and Vermont, along with D.C. Republicans in Congress have pushed for legislation requiring individuals to show proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in elections for federal office.

The House also passed on Tuesday a bill from Rep. Andrew Garbino (R-NY) to restore collective bargaining rights for D.C. police officers and reinstate the statute of limitations for disciplinary cases against members or civilian employees of the Metropolitan Police Department.

A federal grand jury indicted Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) in connection to last month’s scuffle outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, interim U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey Alina Habba announced on Tuesday.

In a post on X, Habba revealed that the three-count indictment charges McIver with “forcibly impeding and interfering with federal law enforcement officers.”

McIver said she will be entering a plea of not guilty.

“The facts of this case will prove I was simply doing my job and will expose these proceedings for what they are: a brazen attempt at political intimidation,” McIver said in a statement. “This indictment is not more justified than the original charges, and is an effort by Trump’s administration to dodge accountability for the chaos ICE caused and scare me out of doing the work I was elected to do. But it won’t work — I will not be intimidated.”

On May 9, McIver and other Democrats from New Jersey demanded they be allowed to conduct “oversight” of the ICE detention facility at Delaney Hall. A confrontation between them and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents ensued, as shown in ICE body-cam footage.

According to a Department of Justice press release, the indictment says McIver forcibly impeded and interfered with federal officers amid their efforts to arrest the mayor of Newark, who had entered a secured area.

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“Someone in the crowd yelled ‘circle the mayor,'” the DOJ said. “McIver then faced the Mayor and placed her arms around him in an effort to prevent HSI from completing the arrest. During her continued attempts to thwart the arrest, McIver slammed her forearm into the body of one law enforcement officer and also reached out and tried to restrain that officer by forcibly grabbing him. McIver also used each of her forearms to forcibly strike a second officer.”

McIver, initially charged a few weeks ago, faces up to 17 years in prison if convicted.

“As I have stated in the past, it is my Constitutional obligation as the Chief Federal Law Enforcement Officer for New Jersey to ensure that our federal partners are protected when executing their duties,” Habba declared in her post on X. “While people are free to express their views for or against particular policies, they must not do so in a manner that endangers law enforcement and the communities those officers serve.”

Habba added: “Today’s decision by the grand jury is the next step in a process that my Office will pursue to a just end.”