Statehood advocates look to Congress after Trump's DC police takeover

WASHINGTON — As President Donald Trump takes over the District of Columbia’s police force and prepares to deploy the National Guard in an effort to stamp out crime, statehood advocates are calling on congressional Democrats to unify around autonomy for the District and push back against the administration.

At a press conference on Monday, Trump declared a public safety emergency and invoked a section of the 1973 Home Rule Act that allows the federal government to take the reins of the local police department for up to 30 days, part of a ramp-up of tough-on-crime rhetoric aimed at D.C.

The push comes as violent crime has fallen in the past two years from a peak in 2023, according to Metropolitan Police Department data, leading some to speculate that Trump’s recent fixation may have more to do with a desire to distract from less favorable stories, like the Epstein files or troubling economic data. Some said it’s an outright power grab.

“People are understanding that this isn’t about crime. It’s absurd. The data doesn’t back it up,” said Keya Chatterjee, executive director of Free DC, a local group advocating for statehood. “It is a direct attack on our democracy, and the people who have any power right now need to stop this.”

With Republicans controlling the White House, Senate and House, Democrats have little ability to enact their priorities. And while Congress could pass a joint resolution to terminate Trump’s takeover of the police, such a measure has no realistic path to becoming law.

But according to Chatterjee and others, Democrats should unify around the push for statehood even so, while condemning Republicans who have so far declined to bring legislation to the floor that would restore a roughly $1 billion budget cut Congress imposed on the city earlier this year.

As Republicans celebrated Trump’s announcement, Democrats painted his maneuverings in grim terms.

“I’ve been representing D.C. for a long time. This is one of the darkest days and biggest crises we’ve ever faced,” said Paul Strauss, a Democrat who has served as one of D.C.’s two shadow senators since 1997. “Not just because it’s an attack on our democracy, but because so many D.C. residents are going to feel less safe.”

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., in a statement called the move “an historic assault on D.C. home rule.” And former Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said he was surprised by some of the rhetoric used by Trump and members of his administration, like Attorney General Pamela Bondi, who said, “let me be crystal clear, crime in D.C. is ending and ending today.”

“I have done hundreds of press briefings on crime,” said Manger, who retired from the Capitol Police in May. “Who would ever say crime stops today? They’re just empty words.”

Trump’s vow to “take our capital back” follows the assault and attempted carjacking of a former Department of Government Efficiency employee along 14th Street Northwest. Last week, Trump posted a photo to Truth Social of Edward Coristine, who is known as “Big Balls,” shirtless and bloodied, after allegedly being beaten by two 15-year-olds.

Congressional Republicans embraced the president’s calls.

“Every American should be able to visit and enjoy Washington, D.C., without fear,” Speaker Mike Johnson posted on the social platform X on Monday. “House Republicans support this effort to CLEAN UP Washington, END the crime wave, and RESTORE the beauty of the greatest capital in the world.”

Kentucky Republican Rep. James R. Comer praised Trump in a statement and announced the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee he chairs would hold a hearing on D.C. crime in September, when lawmakers return from their summer recess. He named D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson and Mayor Muriel Bowser as possible witnesses.

“President Trump is rightly using executive power to take bold and necessary action to crack down on crime and restore law and order,” Comer said. “For years, the D.C. Council’s radical, soft-on-crime agenda has emboldened criminals and put public safety at risk.”

Bowser at a press conference Monday challenged the picture painted by Republicans of a crime-ridden city, but signaled she believed the move was lawful. She said Pamela Smith is still chief of police and would work with the federal government.

“If people are concerned about a president’s ability to have the MPD … be responsive to the Department of Justice, the time to address that is when we’re talking about statehood for D.C.,” Bowser said at a press conference Monday. “There are things that when a city is not a state and not fully autonomous, that the federal government can do.”

‘Fighting crime is a complicated thing’

Crime in D.C. is an issue, and there are things local and federal authorities could be doing to better address concerns, admits Ankit Jain, D.C.’s second shadow senator.

But deploying the National Guard and commandeering the Metropolitan Police Department — as Trump announced on Monday he is doing — do little to combat crime, he said.

“You didn’t hear the president talk once about the $1 billion that Congress stole from us,” said Jain, referring to the cut imposed by Congress earlier this year as part of a continuing resolution for fiscal 2025 that held D.C.’s spending to its fiscal 2024 levels. “It boggles the mind that he complains about crime in D.C, and that Congress complains, and they steal a bunch of money from us that we could use to fight crime in D.C.”

Legislation to restore that funding passed the Senate in March, but has not yet been called for a vote in the House. A spokesperson for Johnson on Monday did not respond to a request for comment on the funding fix.

“If this was anything other than a political ploy and attempted distraction from Trump’s other scandals, if he actually cared about the people of DC, he’d demand the House finally release the billion dollars of DC’s funding they’ve been sitting on for months,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., posted on X.

Meanwhile Norton and Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said they would reintroduce legislation when Congress returns in September to give local authorities full control of the D.C. National Guard and the Metropolitan Police Department.

Both shadow senators said Trump and concerned Republicans could also more effectively address crime in D.C. by doing things like working to fill vacancies in the U.S. attorney’s office — which suffered a spate of firings when the administration targeted prosecutors who had worked on cases related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol — or by appointing more D.C. trial court judges.

“We have an extremely high judicial vacancy rate, but that’s because the president hasn’t nominated enough judges and the Republican-controlled Senate hasn’t confirmed them,” Strauss said. “That is a huge problem. You have cases that drag their way through the system, and that’s not good for anybody.”

Manger, for one, was doubtful the presence of military personnel and federal agents alone would do much to address the myriad causes of crime.

“Fighting crime is a complicated thing, and it’s not just about law enforcement,” Manger said.

According to him, a comprehensive fix would have to involve greater investment in community programs to fight things like truancy and addiction and to secure more prosecutions for offenders.

“These are pieces of the strategy to reduce crime,” Manger said. “If all you’re doing is surging law enforcement … it might help a little. But there are a number of other pieces.”

Congressional focus on D.C. is not new. For years Republicans, sometimes with the help of Democrats, have tried to shape the District, using a feature of the Home Rule Act that allows Congress to review and overturn local legislation.

In 2023, some Democrats joined Republicans to pass a disapproval resolution blocking a controversial revamping of D.C.’s criminal code, which President Joe Biden then signed.

Already this Congress, House lawmakers voted in favor of three bills that would roll back local policies related to policing, “sanctuary city” actions and noncitizen voting, though none of those bills has gotten a vote in the Senate. And efforts to repeal the Home Rule Act entirely are percolating, though with seemingly little support.

Utah GOP Sen. Mike Lee and Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles earlier this year introduced bicameral legislation to repeal the law, which grants D.C. limited powers to self-govern. But few lawmakers have signaled their support. The Senate version of the bill has just two co-sponsors, while the House measure has six, all of them Republicans.

“I expect that the president will realize that running a metropolitan police department is a lot harder than he thinks it is,” Jain said. “So my expectation is this will show Congress that running D.C. is not something they want to take on.”

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