For generations, the District of Columbia has lived under the heel of a Congress that does not answer to its people. Today, the grip tightens once again.
With President Donald Trump (R) and his loyalists working to take much of the powers of Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) and the D.C. Council, MAGA Republicans have advanced new measures aimed at: weakening the city’s authority; overriding local decision; and placing greater federal control over more than 700,000 residents who still lack full representation.
On Nov. 17, Rep. Summer Lee, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, confronted Republicans on the House Rules Committee as they moved forward with two bills that would dismantle police accountability reforms and revive cash bail across the District.
“We are not in a country where one is presumed guilty just because they’re Black or poor,” she said, “but they’re assumed innocent if they are a white-collar criminal living on Pennsylvania Avenue.”
Lee warned that the foundation of basic rights was being chipped away.
“It seems Republicans have forgotten about ‘innocent until proven guilty’ and the Fifth Amendment,” she said, “which are core tenets of our democracy.”
She added that fairness depends on access to counsel.
“It’s also why it’s so important for these people to have an attorney during these hearings,” Lee continued. “Which is why I introduced the True Justice Act to provide grants to public defender offices to expand their services to include bail hearings.”
At the center of the push are two bills.
H.R. 5107 would repeal the District’s 2022 Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act, stripping back restrictions on chokeholds, weakening body camera rules, and restoring the use of military grade equipment in local law enforcement.
H.R. 5214 would overturn the city’s long-standing pretrial system and reintroduce cash bail and mandatory detention, trapping poor residents behind bars before trial and erasing one of the nation’s most progressive pretrial protections.
D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton called the proposals both unjust and antidemocratic.
“D.C.’s local legislature, the D.C. Council, was elected by D.C. residents,” she said. “And its members are accountable to D.C.”
Norton denounced efforts by lawmakers from faraway states to govern a city they do not represent.
“They are the appropriate elected officials to dictate D.C. laws,” she noted. “Not Republican members of Congress representing the interests of faraway districts.”
Norton’s warning followed earlier condemnations after the House passed two additional anti-autonomy bills.
“Today’s vote is yet another shameful assault on the democratic rights of more than 700,000 taxpaying D.C. residents,” the longtime delegate determined. “And, House Republicans, none of whom represent D.C. or are accountable to its people, are once again engaging in disingenuous partisanship to impose their preferred policies on D.C.”
More Legislative Efforts to Control the District
These bills are only part of a larger slate.
Thirteen Republican driven proposals reach into nearly every aspect of District governance. They would give the president the power to appoint D.C. judges and the attorney general, lower the age at which children can be prosecuted as adults, widen congressional veto authority over local laws, and authorize federal enforcement of bans on tents or makeshift shelters across the city.
The combined impact is a systematic effort to shift local authority into the hands of federal lawmakers who do not live in the District and do not answer to its people.
District leaders have answered in one voice.
“We stand united against all 13 anti-DC Home Rule bills in Congress,” District Attorney General Brian Schwalb said. “D.C. is home to more than 700,000 residents who pay taxes, run businesses, and serve in the military,” he said, “and we deserve the right to set our local laws. Congress should reject this unprecedented federal overreach.”
Bowser joined that warning.
“We are united in our forceful opposition to the bills recently advanced by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,” she proclaimed. “These bills are an affront to Home Rule and the principles of democracy and local self-governance on which this country was founded.
The mayor emphasized that D.C. residents deserve the right to elect local leaders who have the authority to determine the local policies that govern them.
“We urge members of Congress to reject this unprecedented federal overreach and vote against these bills,” she said.