Musicians Bruce Springsteen, Gladys Knight and Jose Feliciano will receive medals for their work during a ceremony at the White House on Tuesday.

They are among 21 individuals and organizations to receive the National Medal of Arts and the National Medal of Humanities for 2021, awards given for contributions to the arts and humanities. (The awards were delayed by a year due to the pandemic.)

Actors Mindy Kaling and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, fashion designer Vera Wang and writers Richard Blanco, Anne Patchett, Brian Stevenson, Amy Tan and Colson Whitehead will receive medals.

Biden also wants to honor Fred Eichaner for his contributions to dance, architecture, art education, and LGBTQI+ rights. Eichaner is a major donor to the Democratic Party.

Previously, Biden presented the National Humanities Medal to Sir Elton John in September 2022 at a special performance at the White House.

Here is the complete list of winners:

National Medal of Arts

• Judith Francisca Baca, artist
• Fred Eichaner, philanthropist
• Jose Feliciano, musician
• Mindy Kaling, actress
• Gladys Knight, musician
• Julia Louis Dreyfus, actor
• Antonio Martorell Cardona, artist
• Joan Shigekawa, producer and art manager
• Bruce Springsteen, musician
• Vera Wang, designer
• Billie Holiday Theater
• International Association of Blacks in Dance

National Humanities Medal

• Richard Blanco, writer
• Johnnetta Betch Cole, anthropologist
• Walter Isaacson, writer
• Earl Lewis, historian
• Henrietta Mann, Native American academic
• Ann Patchett, writer
• Brian Stevenson, lawyer and activist
• Amy Tan, writer
• Tara Westover, writer
• Colson Whitehead, writer
• Native America Calls, radio show

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Monday signed into law a bill repealing the District of Columbia’s recent penal code overhaul, but the struggle between Congress and local lawmakers continues.

The signature simply marks the end of a tumultuous first chapter in a saga that has left county legislators bitterly cherishing their political bruises, harboring renewed resentment against National Democrats, and preparing to defend themselves against the House Republican-controlled asset for at least the next two years. .

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy hailed the move in a statement, calling it the end of what he called “a rewritten criminal code that treats violent criminals as victims and ignores the views of law enforcement.”

But even before the bill was formally sent to Biden, Republicans in the House of Representatives promised a season of direct congressional intervention in D.C. local affairs.

“This is just the beginning,” California’s McCarthy said earlier this month at a signing ceremony after the Senate, with significant Democratic support, voted to repeal the new criminal code. “This is a message for the entire nation.”

The members of the DC Council appear to have full faith in these promises.

“I’m afraid we’ll see more of that before the end of this Congress,” said D.C. Board Chairman Phil Mendelsohn. “Does this raise concerns that there will be other problems? Yes.”

When the Congressional measure proved inevitable, and Biden signaled that he would sign it, the D.C. Board withdrew the measure. But the move didn’t spare Biden a politically motivated decision about whether to approve Congress’s decision.

Biden did not issue a statement accompanying the Monday signing. But earlier this month, he tweeted that while he supports statehood for D.C., “I don’t support some of the changes the D.C. Council made over the mayor’s objections, such as lowering auto theft fines.”

Under Washington’s powers of self-rule, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee essentially reviews all new D.C. laws and often changes or restricts them with budget overlays. But the rewritten penal code is the first completely repealed law since 1991.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, D-Kentucky, pledged that his committee is “ready to exercise strict oversight of America’s capital.”

This strict oversight has already begun. Even before Biden signed the bill, the Oversight Committee sent out letters challenging Mendelsohn, D.C. councilman Charles Allen, and D.C. CFO Glen Lee to testify at the March 29 hearing. The subject of this hearing, according to the letter, is the ominously vague “general oversight of the District of Columbia, including crime, safety, and city government.”

Other Republicans in the House of Representatives have already identified areas of interest that should be addressed. Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia introduced a resolution to block police accountability legislation, known as the Comprehensive Police and Justice Reform Act.

Most aspects of this law were passed by the D.C. Council on an emergency basis in 2020 amid protests against police brutality following the killing of George Floyd; in December 2022, it became permanent. It bans the use of chokeholds by police, makes police disciplinary documents available to the public, weakens the bargaining power of the police union, and limits the use of tear gas to disperse protesters.

“Now that Congress has effectively used its constitutional powers to repeal the dangerously revised D.C. Council Penal Code Act, we must now take action to quickly block this anti-police measure to keep our nation’s capital safe for all Americans,” Clyde said. in a statement.

Clyde is a longtime enemy of D.C. supporters, having publicly stated that his ultimate goal is to completely end Washington’s power of self-rule. This opinion, which was once a fringe position, has come close to becoming a main topic of discussion among Republicans. Earlier this month, former President Donald Trump publicly stated that “the federal government must assume control and management of Washington, DC.”

Meanwhile, Oversight Committee member Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, Georgia, targeted the D.C. prison for congressional scrutiny.

Green demanded access to the prison in order to visit about two dozen prisoners involved in the January 6 uprising at the US Capitol. She is also seeking a complete overview of conditions in the prison.

Other aspects of D.C. legislation remain current targets for Republican activists, such as the district’s strict gun control laws or the decision to essentially decriminalize most psychedelics, a move that was approved by D.C. voters in a referendum.

This congressional assault on oversight was widely predicted when Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives in last year’s midterm elections. But most local politicians and activists hoped they could count on Democratic control of both the Senate and the White House as a shield. Those hopes quickly faded in a storm of political dynamics that resulted in a humiliating setback for the DC Council and Washington’s high hopes for statehood.

Republicans in the House of Representatives were able to put Biden and Democrats in the Senate into a political trap. By defending DC’s right to self-government, they would open themselves to accusations of being soft on criminals during a rise in crime in both the nation’s capital and the United States.

Ultimately, Biden signaled before the Senate vote that he would not veto the penal code rejection, and 33 Democratic senators voted to overturn it. The moves were seen by statehood activists as a betrayal that they said exposed the failure of D.C. Democratic support for statehood.

For now, the DC Council argues that the city’s criminal code is dangerously outdated and in desperate need of reform, but after the original law has become a national political issue, there seems to be little desire to try again in the short term.

Mendelsohn said changing aspects that have drawn criticism, such as lowering maximum penalties for crimes like auto theft, will simply lead to other objections from the Republican House, which he says is openly looking for fights.