Fifty years ago, the people of D.C. got a Christmas present from the president of the United States – something citizens had asked for for a century. And all these years later, the chairman of the D.C. Council sees the D.C. Home Rule Act as a gift that's still being unwrapped.
The D.C. Home Rule Act, signed by President Richard Nixon on Christmas Eve in 1973, answered calls for self-determination that dated back to the 1870s. A year after the legislation, city voters chose their first elected mayor, Walter E. Washington, and their first elected city council. But the bill wasn’t the be-all and end-all for local governance.
Instead, it’s been referred to as a pig in a poke, and the ensuing years would reveal what was in that bag.
“I call it limited home rule because that really is what it is,” Chairman Phil Mendelson, of the D.C. Council, said.
Most glaring were the limits on fiscal freedom. Before home rule, pensions for city police officers, firefighters, teachers and judges were handled on a federal pay-as-you-go basis. So when it became the city’s responsibility, there was no money – a structural flaw that was only addressed amid budget-killing debt.
“That got up to about $3 billion before finally that got fixed,” Mendelson said.
Other shortcomings persist.
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“Our criminal justice system is half federal, half local, and in all these ways, it’s more complicated and more difficult to govern,” Mendelson said.
As recent as this past summer, amid rising crime and proposed changes to the city’s criminal code, a Republican from Tennessee sponsored legislation that would repeal the D.C. Home Rule Act and place the District back under control of Congress. The bill was short on details and language; it’s barely a page long and is languishing in the House.
And Congress has always kept a Damoclean sword dangling over City Hall.
“All of our bills have to go to Congress. And in the past 50 years, something like four bills have actually been disapproved. Congress still puts riders on legislation, trying to constrict what we’re doing,” Mendelson said.
And the 700,000 residents of D.C. still don’t have full representation in Congress, which Mayor Muriel Bowser also addressed in a statement available here.
“Anniversaries are always an important time to reflect as well as to renew commitment, and this government and this city has been fighting for statehood for decades, so this is an opportunity to renew that commitment,” Mendelson said.
Expect celebrations of the D.C. Home Rule Act all year long, including a reunion of past elected leaders, survivors of the system that at 50 years old is still growing.
“But still, it’s a better government than the preceding hundred years,” Mendelson said.
