As a government shutdown looms large, and several laid-off federal government employees remain jobless, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser once again is reminded about the futility of depending on the federal government as an engine of economic mobility.
Bowser emphasized the District’s unique challenges while speaking before an audience of congresspeople, congressional staffers, corporate executives and others who recently attended the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF) 54th Annual Legislative Conference (ALC).
“If this government shuts down, people right here are gonna be more impacted than any place else, because they may or may not get paid, and they may or may not get their jobs back,” Bowser told lawyer and activist Angela Rye on the evening of Sept. 26, during a mayoral Friday fireside chat sponsored by the Southern Poverty Law Center. “So the big concern I have for that resident…was how do we shift our economy away from the federal government, attract good-paying jobs, and keep D.C. residents working?”
Earlier this year, soon after the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cut 40,000 federal government jobs, the D.C. Office of the Chief Financial Officer announced declining revenue projections for the next four fiscal years.
The revelation compelled conversation about D.C.’s economic future, and a Bowser budget proposal that drew the ire of restaurant workers, and health care, housing and food security advocates.
Days before her ALC appearance, Bowser hinted at the release of a legislative package to fulfill her economic agenda for D.C. during her remarks before the D.C. Chamber of Commerce. On Tuesday, she announced the introduction of legislation intended to streamline zoning appeals, create new revenue streams for businesses and enhance tourism opportunities, provide an appeals process for taxation that hinders commercial investment, expand entrepreneurship opportunities, and authorize enforcement of illegal vending in public spaces.
According to administration officials, the Growth Agenda aims to support citywide growth, streamline development processes, and enhance the District’s position as a hub for innovation and entrepreneurship. Even with all that, Bowser pointed out that the District is still in a precarious state that leaves it vulnerable to Trump and congressional Republicans.
“We are the embodiment of taxation without representation,” Bowser told Rye last Friday. “I would call it an accident, but it’s a travesty of our democracy, and it has to be righted.”
Bowser Calls on Senate Democrats, While Baltimore Mayor Scott Sets the Record Straight
Rye’s fireside chat with Bowser on Sept. 26 kicked off an ALC session themed “Local Strength, National Promise: The Power of Black Mayors.”
It also took place just days after House Republicans, with the support of House Democrats, advanced bills encroaching on District home rule. If approved by the Senate, and signed by President Donald J. Trump, the legislation in question would allow for, among other things: the prosecution of 14-year-olds as adults in the District, presidential control of D.C. judicial appointments, and the cessation of early prison release policies.
“We have to make sure that all Democrats in the Senate band together to fight that,” Bowser said. “Not only for D.C., but it would become a model for a national peace and crime relationship. So we need the Democrats to hold together.”
In the House, 31 Democrats voted in approval of legislation limiting the District’s control over its sentencing laws, and the adult prosecution of 14 year olds. More than two dozen Democrats also joined Republicans in the approval of a bill that allows for police’s vehicular pursuits of suspects, perhaps like what led to the police-involved death of Karon Hylton-Brown in 2020.
“All Democrats didn’t hold together in the House,” Bowser told Rye on the afternoon of Sept. 26. “They didn’t, and that doesn’t necessarily surprise me when we’re talking about a national crime fight, and we’re talking about a battle for the House. So I think we all have to be strategic to make sure that we in cities, us in our city, are giving our national Democrats what they need to fight for us.”
Currently, there are 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats in the Senate. That means Republicans, voting on one accord, would need at least seven Democratic votes to pass legislation in that chamber of Congress.
With an ongoing budget battle, and government shutdown on the horizon, it’s unlikely that Senate Democratic leadership will immediately mull over the recently approved public safety legislation.
Neither Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) office nor that of Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) immediately responded to a request for comment.
A spokesperson in the Executive Office of the Mayor declined to share details about Bowser’s engagement with “partners on the Hill,” including Senate Democrats.
During the CBCF mayoral fireside chat, Bowser drew distinctions between D.C. and other U.S. cities, as it relates to the District’s ability to rebuff federal intrusion. She went on to designate civic engagement and statehood as viable options for protecting residents of the nation’s capital.
“I think that we all have to be focused on the midterms and turning out,” Bowser said as she spoke to the out-of-towners in the audience. “And for all of you who have voting members of Congress, it’s especially important. And when we get to the other side of this, and the Democrats get in control, we need to make D.C. the 51st state.”
Earlier in the month, before Trump’s evocation of D.C. Home Rule Act’s Section 740 expired on Sept. 10, Bowser crafted a mayoral order dictating the nature of the District’s cooperation with the federal government on public safety matters. As Bowser fights off congressional meddling, Trump continues to directly shape local policy, most recently by signing an executive order calling for prosecutors to seek the death penalty in D.C.-based violent crimes.
More broadly, Trump has also expressed a desire to send federal troops and agents to Baltimore, Chicago, and recently Memphis and Portland. While Bowser struck a collegial tone with the president during D.C.’s federalization period, other mayors, perhaps unencumbered by direct control by the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, have been more critical of the president.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) issued an executive order that stands against federal control of the local police department and directs city agencies to protect Chicago residents’ constitutional rights.
In the aftermath of Trump’s incendiary comments about Charm City, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (D) told PBS that the president’s statement doesn’t acknowledge Baltimore’s progress in violence prevention nor does it represent an effort toward collaboration. Weeks later, he touted a gun violence reduction strategy that targets illegal gun manufacturers and prioritizes Baltimoreans on the margins.
“We do [it] as a partnership between my office, the police commission, the police department that work[s] under my direction, my state’s attorney, my attorney general, and community partners,” Scott told The Informer, “to identify those who are most likely to be a victim of perpetrator gun violence. We give them an opportunity to change their life.”
Scott, one of more than 180 members of the African American Mayors Association, spoke on a panel about gun violence prevention with: Johnson; Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens; Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee; and Savannah Mayor Van Johnson.
Well before the mayoral panel,which was the second part of the Local Strength, National Promise: The Power of Black Mayors” event, started, Scott told The Informer that he and his counterparts have been in constant communication about policy issues since before Trump’s second ascension to the Oval Office.
“Whether he was talking about us or not, we’re all connected,” Scott said. “There’s not that many of us, and we have to be always sharing the best possible practices, learning from each other, learning from each other’s mistakes so that the next one doesn’t make it. And being grateful that our brother and sister mayors can take something that we may have been doing early and take it even further and be better than us at it, because that’s what we want.”
Looking Back: Chicago Mayor Johnson and Oakland Mayor Lee Drop Gems of Truth
During their conversation with Rye at CBCF’s 5th Annual Legislative Conference, the five mayors reflected on the nature of their role in the current political climate.
Lee, who served in the House during the Jan. 6 attacks, encouraged audience members to practice the principle of Sankofa — looking back at the ancestors as they chart a new path.
“Our spirit and our clarity about who we are,” Lee said. “as a people and how far we’ve come and that we ain’t no way tired and we’ve got more work to do really keeps us encouraged and keeps us being unafraid of the powers here that be.”
For Lee, the power lies in the hands of the people, who she said have accumulated political power in recent decades.
“People need to see us working for them in cities,” Lee said. “That gives people hope. I won in a special election where they thought it would only be 20 to 25% turnout. It was 35%, and that was because we spoke directly to what people’s needs and aspirations are.”
Johnson spoke directly to Lee’s point while speaking about the mayoral authority that he said allowed him to counter Trump.
“That’s why when Donald Trump puts forth these jacked-up illegal executive orders,” Johnson told Rye on the afternoon of Sept. 26, ”I put my executive orders up to protect our right to protest in this country and to peacefully assemble and make sure that our police department and every single sister agency through my executive order ensures that the residents of our city know their rights.”
On Sunday, a couple of days after Johnson spoke in D.C., ICE agents marched into Downtown Chicago and arrested people based on their appearance. Since Sept. 8, when Operation Blitz started, ICE has made hundreds of arrests, all while protesters continue to clash with federal agents at an ICE processing facility.
Despite Trump’s gripes about inner city violence, Chicago, like D.C., Baltimore and Savannah, have experienced a reduction, often through a combination of wraparound services and public safety policy changes.
That’s why, while speaking alongside his colleagues, Johnson raised what he thought to be an obvious point.
“I just want to lift up the fact that the very places that are under attack are all spaces that are led by Black leaders,” Johnson said in response to one of Rye’s questions. “I’m just going to name it. I know we know that but I want to say it out loud. That is very intentional because there is an extremism in this country that has not accepted the results of the Civil War. They are fully engaged in their rematch. We’ve just got to know what we’re fighting against.”