President Trump this week moved from rhetoric to action in his push for more federal control of Washington, D.C. Citing a “public safety emergency,” he is deploying National Guard troops to support federal officers already in place, taking direct control of the city’s police department under a provision of the 1973 Home Rule Act, and pledging to “get rid of the slums.”
Democrats’ reaction has been swift and condemnatory. They cast the move as the latest instance of his authoritarian overreach.
“This is what dictators do,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom proclaimed on X. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said the move had “no basis in law.” The New York Times ran the headline: “Trump threatens federal takeover of Washington after Member of DOGE is Assaulted.”
In reality, the Constitution not only allows this but anticipates federal intervention in the capital’s affairs, at least in some circumstances. That’s because the District of Columbia was created precisely so that the seat of government would not depend on any state for its security, funding or order.
Washington is not a state and never has been. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution grants Congress the power to “exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever” over the District. This is a sweeping authority that has been used repeatedly.
Local self-government in D.C. is a modern experiment, not an inalienable right. Until the 1973 District of Columbia Home Rule Act, the city was run directly by federally appointed officials. The 1801 Organic Act placed Washington under congressional control; in the 1870s, Congress briefly allowed a territorial-style government, but after mismanagement and debt spiraled, it reimposed direct federal rule.
Even under home rule, Congress has retained authority to override local laws, control the District’s budget, and, in emergencies, reassert direct control, as it did from 1995 to 2001 through a Financial Control Board during a local fiscal crisis.
A president cannot unilaterally abolish home rule, but he can press Congress to act, and he can invoke his existing emergency powers. Trump’s actions pursue those avenues and certainly don’t defy the Constitution.
For example, the Home Rule Act explicitly allows the president to assume control of the police if “special conditions of an emergency nature exist.” Trump’s order triggers that provision. Although Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser argues those conditions do not exist, the statute leaves it to the federal government’s discretion.
The case for intervention is straightforward: D.C. has an image problem utterly unfit for its role as the nation’s capital. It consistently ranks among the most dangerous cities in America. Annual homicides were just under 200 last year and more than twice their level in 2012, despite Bowser’s rote claims of “declining crime.” What decline there is mostly reflects the nationwide post-COVID drop in crime rather than any uniquely successful policy.
High-profile incidents underscore the issue. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) was carjacked at gunpoint near Capitol Hill. Around the same time, the Secret Service vehicle assigned to Naomi Biden — the granddaughter of the then-president — was broken into in Georgetown, which is arguably the nicest part of the city. Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) was assaulted by a homeless man in the elevator of her apartment building. Federal employees, foreign diplomats and tourists face the same risks as residents.
Many residents and much of the press speak as if the city belongs exclusively to its 700,000 inhabitants and their mayor. But the capital was never meant to be insulated from national accountability. Congress intended the District to be a showcase of national governance, and the question is whether the current model of home rule without meaningful federal oversight is meeting that standard.
Such disorder compels one to ask whether Congress’s responsibility to “exercise exclusive legislation” has been neglected. Precedent shows that when D.C. cannot ensure stability against, as Trump described Monday, “crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse,” federal reengagement is both lawful and at times necessary.
If opponents reject Trump’s vision for federal involvement, they should make the substantive case for how home rule can be reformed to meet the moment. But it is disingenuous to suggest the Constitution forbids such intervention. If Congress refuses to act, the city’s fate will rest on whatever limited tools the executive already possesses.
As for Newsom’s lecture on “what dictators do,” perhaps the first governor to lock down his state during COVID and the last to reopen schools — the man who turned the nation’s largest state into a poster child for woke dysfunction — should sit this one out.
Trump has answered the question of whether he’ll use his constitutional tools. The progressive left must now decide whether to produce a plan for home rule that works or just keep shouting “authoritarian” while the capital continues to decline.
William Liang is a writer living in San Francisco.
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