By Mark Mix
Home day care providers would be forced into unions
D.C. Council members voiced overwhelming support Thursday for legislation that allows illegal immigrants in the District to acquire driver's licenses, but tussled with the Department of Motor Vehicles director over how to issue such a document and keep in step with federal law.
Just one year after the District of Columbia passed a law making it slightly less expensive to register a handgun, the liberal city council is trying again to discourage gun ownership by making it prohibitively expensive.
The D.C. Council, always on the scout for a new way to pick the pockets of the people who live in Washington, now proposes to require gun owners to pay for exercising their constitutional rights. Under a proposal introduced by Mary M. Cheh, a member of the council, gun owners would be required to buy liability insurance.
The District would be the first jurisdiction in the country to require gun owners to purchase liability insurance, under a bill being considered by the D.C. Council.
A D.C. lawmaker is looking to end the Metropolitan Police Department's long-standing ban on the release of mug shots of people who are arrested — a move she hopes will increase the likelihood of solving other crimes.
President Obama has agreed to place license plates on his presidential limousine that call attention to the District’s lack of voting rights in Congress, White House officials said Tuesday.
Despite months of rhetoric and proposals, D.C. lawmakers failed to pass sweeping campaign finance reforms by the end of a legislative period that was historic for all the wrong reasons.
D.C. lawmakers on Tuesday signaled they will lower fines for speeders and other scofflaws caught by traffic cameras even as the city expands the program across the city — a trade-off that reflects the fragile business of letting machines issue tickets instead of live officers.
D.C. lawmakers gave preliminary approval to a billthat limits taxi regulators' authority over sedan-on-demand companies as long as drivers are transparent about their fares and follow some consumer-protection rules, making the nation's capital the latest American city to tackle 21st-century services that allow passengers to order up a ride with a few keystrokes on their smartphone.
The D.C. Council is poised to lower the cost of speed camera tickets from a maximum of $250 to just $50. The plan unveiled on Tuesday is meant to create the impression that the District has seen the light and has finally decided to go easier on motorists.
City lawmakers on Tuesday answered a mounting chorus of motorists who say the District is burdening them with pricey traffic-camera fines in an attempt to balance the local budget under the banner of public safety.
Advocates told a D.C. Council committee on Monday that legislation to reserve about 10 percent of the city's on-street parking spots for disabled motorists — yet require them to pay — appeared to be a revenue grab that overburdens a population with limited transit options.
Since winning the race to represent Ward 5 on the D.C. Council five months ago today, Kenyan McDuffie hasn't made headlines as an emerging political personality. That's probably a good thing, considering that some of his most likeable colleagues are in the prosecutorial sightlines of the U.S. attorney and other investigators.
A D.C. Council member will introduce a bill Tuesday that reserves more than 10 percent of the District's on-street parking spaces for disabled motorists, a "red-top" meter program designed to comply with federal law despite cutting into an already thin supply of curbside spots in the nation's capital.
Uber CEO Travis Kalanick told D.C. Council members Monday that legislation and proposed regulations to oversee the burgeoningsedan-for-hire industry in the District are chock full of "gray areas" and impediments that could harm his business and the customers who rely on it.
"We have multiple IDs," Ms. Cheh said, rattling off a bevy of ID cards she's acquired over the years. "I don't think this is beyond the capacity of us to figure out, and I think we are beginning to shape a way to steer through this."
D.C. Council backs driver's licenses for illegal immigrants →
She said she envisions the District's law providing coverage for a wide range of scenarios, from a person intentionally shot during a robbery to a child who picks up an unsecured gun and fires at someone.
D.C. bill would require gun owners to buy liability insurance →
