This bill repeals the District of Columbia’s Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act of 2022 (D.C. Law 24–345) and directs that any provision amended or repealed by that Act be restored or revived as if the 2022 Act had never been enacted.
The repeal is broad and framed as a wholesale restoration of the pre‑2022 statutory text, not a targeted set of amendments.
The statute carves out two exceptions: it preserves subtitle S of title I (D.C. Official Code sec. 5–365.01 et seq.) and subtitle A of title I (D.C.
Official Code sec. 5–125.01 et seq. and sec. 5–302). The practical effect is to remove the bulk of the 2022 policing and justice reforms from the D.C. code while leaving those specific listed provisions intact — a mix of reversal and selective retention that raises immediate implementation and governance questions for federal and local actors.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill repeals D.C. Law 24–345 in full except for two specified subtitles, and orders that any D.C. statutes changed by that law be restored to their pre‑2022 form. It does not include transitional language, an effective date, or implementation instructions.
Who It Affects
The repeal directly affects the District of Columbia government, the Metropolitan Police Department, D.C. courts and prosecutors, individuals and entities subject to statutes changed by the 2022 law, and organizations that implemented policies under the 2022 reforms.
Why It Matters
Congress is exercising its authority over D.C. law to reverse a major local policing reform package, which changes the statutory baseline for policing and criminal procedure in the District and creates administrative and legal uncertainty for agencies and courts that must operationalize the change.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill operates in two simple strokes: a broad repeal and a narrow exception. It declares that the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act of 2022 is repealed, and it directs that any statutory modification made by that Act be undone — effectively reinstating the text of the D.C.
Code as it read before the 2022 law. That restoration is not framed as a set of new amendments but as a revival of the prior legal regime "as if" the 2022 Act had never been enacted.
The only limits to that rollback are the two subtitles the bill explicitly preserves. By naming subtitle S of title I (sec. 5–365.01 et seq.) and subtitle A of title I (sec. 5–125.01 et seq. and sec. 5–302), the bill leaves those specific provisions in place while stripping the rest of the reform package.
Because the bill references D.C. Official Code sections rather than describing policy content, implementers will need to look to the code to identify exactly which rules survive and which revert.The bill contains no implementation timetable, no delegation of authority to manage the transition, and no appropriation to fund changes.
That silence matters: agencies and courts will need to interpret whether reinstatement is automatic upon enactment, whether administrative rules and policies adopted under the 2022 Act remain effective, and how to handle actions — arrests, prosecutions, departmental directives — that occurred during the 2022 regime. The absence of transitional provisions creates a practical seam between legislative intent and day‑to‑day operations.Finally, while the bill targets a local D.C. law, it does so by federal statute.
That procedural choice is consequential: the legislative vehicle is Congress’s power to legislate for the District, and the result is a federal-level override of a local council’s reform package. That raises predictable legal and political questions about local autonomy, but it also creates immediate administrative tasks — code editors, training rollbacks, and potential litigation — for officials charged with implementing the restored statutory baseline.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill repeals the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act of 2022 (D.C. Law 24–345) and directs that any provision amended or repealed by that Act be restored or revived as if the 2022 Act had not been enacted.
It expressly preserves subtitle S of title I of the 2022 Act (D.C. Official Code sec. 5–365.01 et seq.), leaving those provisions intact while repealing the rest of the law.
It also expressly preserves subtitle A of title I of the 2022 Act (D.C. Official Code sec. 5–125.01 et seq. and sec. 5–302), creating a selective repeal rather than a uniform rollback.
The text requires reinstatement of prior statutory language but includes no effective date, transitional rules, funding, or delegation of implementation authority.
Because Congress enacts the repeal by federal statute, the bill alters the District’s statutory baseline directly — a federal override of locally enacted law that operates through ordinary legislation rather than local legislative or judicial processes.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Short title
This section names the bill the "Common‑Sense Law Enforcement and Accountability Now in DC Act of 2025" or the "CLEAN DC Act of 2025." The short title has no legal effect beyond identifying the measure; its practical use is in citations and press references.
General repeal and restoration
This subsection carries the substantive weight: it repeals D.C. Law 24–345 and orders that any provision of law amended or repealed by that Act be "restored or revived" as if the 2022 law had never been enacted. Mechanically, that requires legal editors to reinstate prior statutory text, but it does not specify how to treat administrative rules, agency policies, or ordinances adopted to implement the 2022 changes. Agencies and courts will need to determine whether the reinstatement operates retroactively, whether ongoing proceedings use pre‑ or post‑2022 rules, and how to reconcile regulations that implement now‑repealed statutory provisions.
Express exceptions: two preserved subtitles
This subsection narrows the repeal by excluding two pieces of the 2022 law from its scope. It preserves subtitle S of title I (D.C. Official Code sec. 5–365.01 et seq.) and subtitle A of title I (D.C. Official Code sec. 5–125.01 et seq. and sec. 5–302). The selective retention means the District will be left with a hybrid statutory regime — some 2022 reforms remain while others vanish — which creates potential inconsistencies between preserved provisions and revived pre‑2022 text that will require reconciliation by drafters, regulators, and courts.
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Who Benefits
- Law enforcement agencies operating under the pre‑2022 statutory framework (e.g., Metropolitan Police Department): they regain the prior statutory rules that governed policing activities and may avoid or reverse policy and training changes introduced under the 2022 law.
- Prosecutors and defense counsel familiar with the pre‑2022 statutes: restoring the former statutory baseline reduces the need to retool charging policies and legal strategies developed in response to the 2022 changes.
- Entities that implemented compliance programs based on pre‑2022 law (contractors, unions, insurers): those parties avoid costs associated with having to adapt to or defend new obligations imposed by the 2022 Act.
Who Bears the Cost
- District of Columbia government and agencies: the Council, Mayor’s Office, and agencies must untangle code changes, revise regulations and policies, retrain staff, and absorb administrative costs to revert to prior law while preserving the two kept subtitles.
- Residents and advocacy groups that relied on 2022 reforms: individuals who gained protections or procedures under the 2022 Act lose those statutory benefits and may incur legal and political costs pursuing alternatives.
- Courts and litigants: ambiguity over which rules govern cases in progress increases litigation risk and administrative burden for D.C. courts and federal courts hearing challenges, producing potential backlogs and uncertainty about retroactivity.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is between Congress’s authority to alter District law and the District’s interest in self‑governance: reversing a locally enacted policing reform restores a prior legal baseline favored by some stakeholders but does so by overriding local democratic choices, producing a clash between federal control and local accountability while creating operational uncertainty for agencies and courts.
The bill’s design — a broad repeal plus two narrow exceptions — leaves several implementation questions unanswered. It orders that prior statutory language be "restored or revived," but it says nothing about the effective date, whether administrative rules adopted under the 2022 Act remain in force, or how to treat actions taken while the 2022 regime operated.
Those gaps create legal uncertainty for arrests, prosecutions, licensing, and departmental discipline that occurred during the intervening period.
Selective retention of two subtitles complicates coherence: the preserved provisions may rely on or presume other parts of the 2022 law that the bill now strips away. That raises drafting challenges and the prospect of internal conflicts in the D.C.
Code that agencies and courts must resolve. Finally, the bill substitutes federal legislative action for local decisionmaking; even if constitutionally permissible, that choice substitutes one democratic process for another and raises questions about accountability, enforcement, and the institutional capacity of D.C. officials to manage a rapid statutory rollback.
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