The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are working hard to carry out their threats to “take over” the District of Columbia. They are furiously trying to eliminate D.C.’s self-rule by repealing the Home Rule Act and imposing martial law on the people of District using the National Guard and our own police force. They are currently considering stripping the District of its ability to elect its own attorney general and have voice in the selection of judges in our own courts (or, worse, take them over). All who value American ideals would do well to consider that, if democracy in the District falls, then your rights and elected representation are also at risk.
These Republican attacks on the District are an outright nullification of our country’s founding principles. The Declaration of Independence made clear that governments only derive “their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.” Indeed, we fought the Revolution to defeat a tyrant who tried to exercise unlimited power and send the military into local communities. Our Founders, as exemplified by James Madison in Federalist No. 43, expected that, regardless of what place was chosen for the nation’s capital, the residents “will have had their voice in the election of the government which is to exercise authority over them.” Republicans led the fight for democracy in the District in the 1950s and early 1960s, first under the leadership of President Eisenhower and later under President Nixon who signed the Home Rule Act into law on Christmas Eve 1973.
The House has now passed a succession of bills mocking Madison and the other Founders, by destroying local democracy and diverting their attention from their core job of supporting the country’s national security and ensuring a sound national economy. If representatives in the House are so concerned about safety in the District and driving down crime below its current 30-year low, they should ensure our D.C. courts have the judges they need, judges who understand and will be responsive to our communities in the District; with the recent past in particular as prologue, it is fair to say Republicans clearly have no intention of doing that.
Those currently attacking the District would have you believe that we never had self-government. They are right that there was a Dark Age, from 1874 to 1973, when D.C.’s right to an elected mayor and legislature were denied, and the District was ruled by fiat through presidentially appointed “commissioners.” Unelected and often with no connection to or interest in the District, these “commissioners” were D.C.’s rulers for almost 100 years. In the aftermath of World War II, in which so many Americans — including D.C. residents and Blacks from across the U.S. — fought valiantly for democracy, President Eisenhower led the fight to do away with outsiders ruling over the District and bring elected government back. In his 1954 State of the Union address, President Eisenhower said, “the time is long overdue for granting national suffrage to [D.C.’s] citizens and also applying the principle of local self-government to the nation’s capital.”
Do not believe the lies that the president and Republicans in Congress tell about the District. We in the District are proud to call the District home. Yes, we have problems, just like any other place. Those problems will become drastically worse if people like us, longtime citizens of the District, need to beg — literally, beg — members of Congress to fix potholes, ensure our streets are cleaned, and the garbage is collected. Indeed, Congress enacted the D.C. Home Rule Act to get Congress out of local government in the District and train its focus on its core missions on national (not local) legislation. A federal court recently found that, “the District has a right to govern itself and to determine how to enforce laws in the District.” District residents by citizen referendum have voted repeatedly, and overwhelmingly, in support of the right to govern ourselves and the right to elect our own attorney general.
Republicans once argued that local problems are best addressed by the government closest to the people they govern. Those of us who call the District home know that solutions to D.C.’s challenges will not come from senators and representatives or other unelected officials from far-flung places including South Carolina, West Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Ohio, Georgia, Alabama and South Dakota who do not know the neighborhoods or the people of this great city (but are happy to uproot their citizens to mill often aimlessly on our streets, the Mall and other public spaces). The solutions to our challenges will come from within, from D.C.’s elected officials, from our community leaders, and from our neighbors.
D.C.’s residents deserve the same rights that all other Americans have. Congress should focus on issues facing the entire nation and stop the illegal and anti-American efforts to strip the District of its right to self-governance. We in the District have fought hard for our limited democracy; Congress should not destroy it. The Senate should reject all of the bills that House of Representatives has passed to overturn our locally passed criminal justice reforms and strip the District of limited autonomy it currently enjoys. We are determined to continue our fight for the same rights to self-government supported by the Founders and enjoyed by the citizens of the 50 states.
The authors are founders of DC Statehood PAC and longtime advocates for D.C. statehood, voting rights, and democracy.