Biden says he won't veto measure nixing D.C.'s soft-on-crime law.

It's a sign of the times.

Joe Biden doesn’t know much, but he’s usually known which way the wind is blowing. When it comes to crime, the wind is blowing in the face of those whose policies favor criminals.

It requires only limited intelligence to figure this out. Reading the election returns from last year’s mayoral race in New York and this year’s first-round results from Chicago should suffice.

Nonetheless, Washington D.C.’s clueless city council unanimously passed pro-criminal revisions to the city’s criminal code. The legislation eliminates mandatory minimum sentences for all crimes except first-degree murder and it drastically reduces many maximum sentences. For example, the maximum sentence for a previously convicted felon using a gun to commit more violence drops to an astonishingly low four years, down from 15.

The revised code also establishes the right to a trial by jury for any offense bearing a penalty of more than 60 days in jail. This may make sense in theory, but the D.C. court system is not equipped to meet the requirement. Therefore, the provision will clog the justice system, keeping more criminals on the street and reducing the resources available to hear cases for serious felony offenses.

The city council claims to have addressed this concern by delaying the effective date of the jury trial provision. However, the city’s mayor and the chief judge of the local trial court say the system won’t be able to accommodate the change even with delayed implementation.

You might think, from the passage of the revised criminal code, that D.C. has been spared the crime wave that’s plaguing cities like Chicago. That’s not the case.

According to the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, carjackings in the District have increased by 76 percent compared to this time last year. Total property crime is up 24 percent. Homicides are up 17 percent.

Muriel Bowser, D.C.’s mayor, is no luminary, but she’s an adult. Accordingly, Bowser vetoed the revised code. She stated:

None of us can be satisfied with young people using weapons and killing each other. Any time there is a policy the reduces penalties, I think it sends the wrong message,

We’re also very concerned that the courts will [not] have the resources to keep up with the law [expanding jury trials].

Messaging isn’t the main problem with letting dangerous felons back on the street. Like I said, Bowser is no luminary. But she was right to veto the revisions.

Unfortunately, the city council overrode the mayor’s veto. The vote was 12-1.

Fortunately, the city council doesn’t have the last word. D.C. is a federal city, so Congress gets the final say (absent a presidential veto).

The House said no. Over Bowser’s objection to congressional intervention in D.C.’s affairs, it voted to reject the revised criminal code. This was the first time since 2015 that a resolution disapproving D.C. legislation even made it to the House floor and the first time in roughly three decades that Congress successfully used a disapproval resolution to overturn D.C. legislation.

The rejection of the code revision was bipartisan. Forty-two Democrats voted that way. One of them, Angie Craig of Minnesota, had been assaulted in her D.C. apartment building on the morning of the vote.

The Senate is now up. There’s a dispute over whether Congress’ time for stopping the new criminal code has expired, but the Senate parliamentarian says the Senate has until March 14 to act.

Joe Manchin said early on that he’ll vote to reject the new code. If John Fetterman remains out of action, Manchin’s vote plus those of the 49 GOP members will be enough. And even if Fetterman votes, it was always possible that a few other Dems would join Manchin.

Here’s where Biden comes in. Had he announced that he’ll veto a rejection of the code, this might have persuaded Democrats other than Manchin to vote against the rejection, to protect Biden from exercising his first veto and to avoid being to the right of the president. Additionally, of course, a veto would prevent congressional rejection of the code, in any case.

However, Biden has now said he won’t veto congressional rejection of the code. Hours after telling Senate Dems in a closed-door meeting that he wouldn’t exercise a veto, Biden said in a statement posted to Twitter: “If the Senate votes to overturn what D.C. Council did — I’ll sign it.”

This statement ensures that the Senate will pass legislation rejecting the new D.C. code. With Biden now providing a bit of cover, a couple of Democratic Senators who are up for reelection next year have said they’ll back the House measure. Even Mazie Hirona, the left-liberal from Hawaii, says she might vote for the bill to reject the code.

With his announcement, Biden has done more than block one bad piece of criminal law reform in one jurisdiction. He’s signaled to his party that, for political reasons, it needs to avoid soft-on-crime stances. As Lindsey Graham puts it, it doesn’t make political sense to go “light on gun crimes.” Indeed, it doesn’t make any kind of sense.

Biden was willing to send this message even though he knew his refusal to veto would enrage some Democratic members of Congress who support home rule for D.C., plus a great many left-wing activists.

It has.

From the left’s perspective, the outrage is understandable. After all, Biden is effectively preventing D.C. from determining its own criminal code.

The fact that Mayor Bowser vetoed the code doesn’t matter. The council overrode her veto. Therefore, the city’s governance process yielded a result that Congress will overturn, with Biden’s tacit approval.

Biden would not have taken this step lightly. Like I said, the man knows which way the wind is blowing.