Rep. Andy Ogles launches moon shot to repeal the D.C. Home Rule Act

None of the three Republicans, including co-sponsors Byron Donalds (Fla.) and Matthew M. Rosendale (Mont.), responded to requests for comment.

In a statement to the Washington Examiner on Friday, Ogles cited rising crime in D.C. as the impetus for the legislation as the District is on track to have its deadliest year in two decades. But Ogles has not offered any details about what he is envisioning Congress would do about that, nor does his legislation indicate what type of governmental system it would set up to administer the local affairs of a city of roughly 700,000 people.

“The Nation’s capital has been overrun with violent crime, drugs, theft, homelessness, and riots,” Ogles, the former mayor of Maury County, Tenn., said in a statement. “The Constitution places the authority and responsibility of DC administration with the Congress — not with a DC Mayor or a DC City Council. Congress needs to reclaim its Constitutional authority and make our Nation’s capital safe again, which is why I’m introducing the Seat of Government Act to repeal the DC Home Rule Act.”

D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) said the bill reflected Republicans’ “antipathy toward the District,” adding he could not imagine Congress administering local affairs in a city that now has a nearly $20 billion budget and dozens of agencies requiring oversight. He contended Congress never had the attention for those responsibilities — let alone now, after the city has grown exponentially.

“My first reaction is this: The gentleman hasn’t a clue how to run the District of Columbia,” he said. “And the notion that Congress is ready to go back 50 years, when it wasn’t running the city well then, is fantasy.”

Republicans made similar threats to try to repeal D.C.’s home rule in the 1990s, when homicides exceeded 400 in some years and the District was on the brink of bankruptcy. Rep. Andrew S. Clyde (R-Ga.) renewed the threat last year.

Now that the threat has materialized, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) said she did not expect this bill to succeed — the Senate filibuster would make it extremely unlikely. She called the proposal and its peg to D.C.’s homicide rate “outrageous.” But she added the effort did not surprise her, considering how intent Republicans have been to chip away at D.C. home rule with proposals to block a host of the city’s policies this year.

“I’m a native Washingtonian, and I can tell you I’ve lived here and saw what it meant to live in a totally disempowered city,” Norton said. “Now we’re trying to get statehood, and here we have Republicans trying to take away what little self-government we have. I’ll do all I can to keep that from happening.”

Repealing the Home Rule Act would take D.C. back to its days when it had no elected city government officials to represent local residents or to hold to account. Instead, members of Congress, who have no accountability to D.C. residents, would run the city.

“It would be complete disenfranchisement,” said Chris Myers Asch, co-author of “Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation’s Capital.” “You would also take away the neighborhood commissions, which have been a great vehicle for citizen activism on the ground. You would take D.C. residents out of the political game entirely and thrust them onto the sidelines.”

The Constitution already gives Congress authority over the District, and legislation passed by the D.C. Council must still withstand congressional review. Congress also has the authority to block local D.C. bills or pass federal bills directing city policy or restricting city spending. And it has been exercising that authority plenty this year.

Congress passed two disapproval resolutions — for the first time in three decades — to block the city’s revised criminal code and its major policing legislation, though President Biden vetoed the latter resolution. In addition, Republicans have sought to rewrite the city’s election laws — including trying three different ways to repeal…