President Donald Trump’s 30-day police takeover may be over, but attempts to tighten federal control over Washington, D.C., are far from done, as House Republicans are making clear.
Locals wearing “Free DC” and “Our City Our Say” shirts lined up Wednesday to watch lawmakers debate more than a dozen GOP-led bills aimed at policing, sentencing and self-governance in the District. After a sometimes raucous markup that stretched into the night, the Oversight and Government Reform Committee advanced them on mostly party lines.
Critics say the legislative push represents an existential threat to home rule, while supporters argue it’s needed to bring order back to the nation’s capital.
“It’s pretty clear that Donald Trump and House Republicans, especially here on the Oversight Committee, are pushing a blatant power grab,” California Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the panel, said at the start. “Quite frankly, if the president is so obsessed with governing D.C., he should step down as president and run for mayor.”
D.C. has long been a Republican punching bag, advocates complain, but attention has only intensified in recent months with Trump in the White House and the GOP in control of Congress. In August, the president invoked a section of the 1973 law known as the Home Rule Act to federalize the Metropolitan Police Department, and then deployed the National Guard to police streets and monuments.
Oversight Chair James R. Comer, R-Ky., framed Wednesday’s markup as an effort to clean up the District. “Like President Trump, House Republicans are committed to restoring law and order in our nation’s capital,” he said.
“It’s once again liberation day in Washington, D.C.,” Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., added.
While Comer cited crime levels “unseen since the violent era of the early ’90s,” MPD data shows that violent crime in D.C. is nowhere near the highs reached back then and down significantly from 2023.
The proposed legislation would take aim at the city’s ability to self-govern in a variety of ways. One bill, from Gosar, would make it easier for Congress to overrule acts passed by the D.C. Council or executive orders issued by the mayor.
“It is one of the biggest reductions in the District of Columbia’s authority since Congress passed the Home Rule Act,” said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., who has faced mounting questions about her age and health recently, particularly as she mulls reelection. Norton, who has served as D.C.’s delegate since 1991 and long pushed for statehood, spoke in opposition to each of the GOP-led measures at the markup.
The Constitution gives Congress broad authority over the national seat of government, but federal lawmakers lack the time and knowledge to go line by line through local affairs, Democrats argued.
Crime, courts and encampments
Another proposal, introduced by Rep. William R. Timmons IV, R-S.C., seeks to crack down on homeless encampments, sticking violators with fines of up to $500 or 30 days in jail.
Several of the bills deal with D.C.’s sentencing and legal system. Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, introduced legislation that would give the president more leeway in appointing judges to D.C. courts by getting rid of a local nominating commission. And Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, has proposed eliminating the locally elected D.C. attorney general. Instead, the president would get to choose the district’s chief legal officer, according to Fallon’s bill.
Other legislation would make it easier for youth offenders to be charged as adults, keep more violent offenders locked up before trial and require mandatory cash bail for certain offenses, increase mandatory minimum sentences for violent crimes, and repeal all or parts of controversial D.C. laws, including a 2022 policing overhaul that Republicans have frequently criticized.
Thirteen GOP-sponsored bills were reported favorably, as amended, out of the committee. California Rep. Dave Min was the lone Democrat to vote with Republicans on several of the measures, including the cash bail bill. A proposal introduced by Norton, which would allow the D.C. Council to transmit local laws to Congress electronically, also advanced.
With a slim Republican majority in both the House and the Senate and a 60-vote threshold to end a filibuster on most bills in the Senate, any of the bills would have a difficult path to final passage. But crime and public safety have been a sore spot for Democrats, and House Republicans may seize the opportunity to get them on the record with floor votes.
Meanwhile, local officials and statehood advocates are working to shore up support from Democrats, fanning out around the Hill in recent weeks to plead their case.
The landmark 1973 home rule law — which gave residents the right to elect their own local officials — also allows Congress to review legislation passed by the D.C. Council before it becomes law. As recently as 2023, dozens of congressional Democrats in both the House and Senate joined their GOP colleagues to squash a revision of the local criminal code, passing a disapproval resolution that President Joe Biden then signed.
In June of this year, 11 House Democrats joined Republicans to pass a bill that would end D.C.’s “sanctuary city” stance. That measure has not yet gotten a vote in the Senate.
The House Appropriations Committee has also been a venue to target D.C. Last week, appropriators approved on a party-line vote a fiscal 2026 Financial Services spending bill filled with policy riders to roll back D.C. policies related to everything from traffic laws to reproductive health.
The GOP focus on D.C. has bred cross-party tension, which spilled over at times during Wednesday’s markup.
During discussion of a bill that would create a D.C. Safe and Beautiful Commission instructed to explore policies to increase federal law enforcement presence, Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., peppered its lead sponsor, Rep. John McGuire, R-Va., with a series of pointed questions.
Stansbury asked McGuire if he’d ever been in City Hall (he has not), if he’d written his bill at the behest of the president (he didn’t answer) and who he’d consulted locally before introducing the proposal.
“I consulted with the people of Washington, D.C.,” McGuire said, to laughs from the crowd.
“We’re right here,” shouted one member of the public in attendance.
Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost, D-Fla., meanwhile, got in a spat with Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., a former police officer who introduced legislation to make it easier for law enforcement in D.C. to engage in vehicular pursuits. Why, Frost questioned, was Higgins targeting D.C., rather than supporting a National Guard deployment to his own state, which has one of the highest crime rates in the country?
“I support states’ rights,” Higgins said, eliciting chuckles from the crowd. “I’m a constitutionalist.”
Frost offered an alternate theory: “This body is full of lap dogs doing exactly what the president wants.”
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