Karoline Leavitt Says Trump Hasn’t Ruled Out Ending DC Home Rule
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that President Donald Trump was still considering urging Congress to end Washington, D.C.’s Home Rule Act.
The District of Columbia Home Rule Act, passed in 1973, delegates some of the powers to govern the district to local residents, subject to approval by Congress. The federal statute provides for the election of a mayor and city council, and all legislation passed by the council is then sent to Congress for review and approval before it can become law. D.C. residents have several other limitations, including no representation in Congress, that have sparked them to call for statehood.
The issues related to the powers of D.C.’s local government took on new prominence this month as Trump deployed the National Guard in the nation’s capital and announced he was taking control of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. The president blamed violent crime in the city as necessitating the move, despite reports showing the rates of both violent crime and overall crime had dropped. Other local residents, however, have argued that the pure numerical statistics do not paint the full picture, and D.C. needs a new approach to fighting crime.
In the White House Press Briefing Room on Tuesday afternoon, The Daily Signal’s Elizabeth Mitchell asked Leavitt about the D.C. home rule issues.
“After yesterday’s action to federalize the D.C. police, is the President still interested in working with Congress to end the Home Rule Act, something he has talked about in the past?” asked Mitchell. “Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) has a bill on it. Is that something he’s still interested in?”
Replied Leavitt:
The President is very much still interested in working with Congress to address many of the issues that have plagued Washington, D.C., such as the cashless bail policy, which has been a complete disaster for the city. Juvenile delinquency is another major problem in the city that Congress can address.
So I know Congress is on recess right now. When they get back to work to Washington, this President looks forward to having these conversations with our friends on Capitol Hill so we can work with them to make D.C. safe and beautiful again.
And again, we encourage Democrats to join us in this effort. Perhaps their approval ratings would move up a little bit if they did. I saw a new poll today: Democrat approval rating is at an all time low, 32 percent. If they could just stand by the basic notion of law and order, perhaps they would see that tick up a bit and we welcome them to do that.
Watch the clip above via CNN.
