Washington, DC, has become a hostile city-state
Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Neither objection holds water. For one thing, exclusive legislative authority means what it says — one body enacts the law. Using D.C.’s city council as a think tank wouldn’t violate this principle, because only Congress would oversee legislation from introduction to enactment. But home rule fails because Congress shares its authority with another body. In fact, a law could exist under home rule without Congress touching it at all. The Constitution doesn’t envision such an anomaly.
Relatedly, liquidation presupposes that a constitutional provision is ambiguous. But here, the framers couldn’t have written a clearer provision. Congressional authority over D.C. is exclusive; that means only Congress can exercise it. And so even though Congress has handed lawmaking power to D.C. on multiple occasions, viewing this abdication as indicative of the Constitution’s original meaning would only sanction congressional laziness and cowardice.
A limited win that still matters
The prosecutorial approach would open a more straightforward path to a more limited victory. The pitch is simple: The D.C. attorney general is a federal creation. And yet he is elected and can sue the federal government at will. This flouts the appointment process, as well as the president’s power to remove officers and direct executive-branch entities. Now would be the perfect time to press this argument, as the Supreme Court aims to clarify the president’s removal power later this term and the D.C. Circuit recently questioned whether “the District possesses an independent sovereignty that can give rise to an Article III injury from actions of the federal government.”
The only issue is that D.C. could still make law. But some of that law will be unenforceable if the attorney general cannot prosecute. Hence, a small win — but a win nonetheless.
Congress has subverted the Constitution by entertaining home rule. The results have been ugly and will get uglier. District residents will grow increasingly radical in their demands for self-governance. The framers, in their wisdom, didn’t create a sovereign D.C. — they bequeathed us a federal city to preserve a neutral national government. We should restore that vision.
Editor’s Note: A version of this article was published originally at the American Mind
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.