In 1973, Congress passed the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, which expanded the District’s municipal powers, although Congress can still override some District government actions.
That didn’t always work out so well. The district is now a massive, bubbling pot of crime, with car thefts and robberies becoming disturbingly common. Now that the GOP (narrowly) controls the House, Senate and White House, one congressman, Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA), is trying to do it abolish home rule of the district.
Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) plans to introduce legislation next year that would strip Washington’s local autonomy and instead require any local law to be approved by Congress before it can take effect. Clyde has previously attempted to repeal D.C.’s home rule, but those efforts were largely unsuccessful due to Democratic opposition in the Senate and White House.
But now, with one GOP trifecta Heading into the modern year, Clyde is elated try again.
“When House Rules were introduced in 1973, it said, ‘OK, anything the city passes gets approved, and Congress only has a limited amount of time to reject it.'” Clyde told The Daily caller. “That’s wrong.”
That’s a bit of an understatement. But the district is organized this way for a reason; It should be the seat of the national government and not within or part of a state.
However, when the district was created, the founders clearly did not anticipate that there would be current urban progressive politicians and revolving door justice systems.
Although Washington is neither a state nor part of a state, the District is permitted to operate as an independent local government through the D.C. Home Rule Act, which was enacted in 1973 to give it some control over its own legislative affairs. The only caveat is that all are subject to laws Approval of Congress before it took effect, giving congressmen outsized influence over the 68-square-mile jurisdiction.
That caveat was put into action last year when Clyde introduced a bill to repeal the District’s Revised Penal Code, which was passed by the D.C. Council. The revised law aimed to clarify the county’s crime laws and, in some cases, reduce penalties for violent crimes such as car theft and murder.
Look, if there’s one place in the nation where citizens – and all citizens – should be able to walk the streets confident in their safety at any time of the day or night, it should be the nation’s capital. That is clearly not the case now.
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Assuming Congress violates the District’s home rules, how can they take control of the streets? This is a pretty tricky problem. It would be tempting to organize something like the Swiss Vatican guards guarding the Pope, but such a group would have to be made up of the country’s law enforcement and military personnel, and that just smacks a little too much of a reincarnation of the Pope’s senior Praetorian Guard from Rome.
However, they could try to catch and imprison crooks. Just a thought. And finally, we have a national law enforcement agency that has been around for a long time, the U.S. Marshals.
Whatever happens, the status quo in the district is clearly not acceptable. Maybe it’s time to try something different.
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