{"id":1759,"date":"2025-08-15T16:01:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T16:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/?p=1759"},"modified":"2025-08-19T19:18:53","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T19:18:53","slug":"democrats-introduce-bill-to-block-trump-dc-police-takeover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/2025\/08\/15\/democrats-introduce-bill-to-block-trump-dc-police-takeover\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats introduce bill to block Trump DC police takeover"},"content":{"rendered":"

A band of Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation<\/a> to thwart President Trump\u2019s takeover of the Washington, D.C., police department, arguing the White House is exceeding its authority.<\/p>\n

The resolution would terminate Trump\u2019s Monday order<\/a>, something the lawmakers say comes as \u201cthe President has concocted a false narrative around the city\u2019s crime rates\u201d which have been declining for two years, while violent crime has reached a 30-year-low<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder the D.C. Home Rule Act, Congress has given the president the power only to direct the Mayor to make the Metropolitan Police Department available for a specific federal purpose but has given him no power simply to take over the Department. In any event, there is no federal emergency justifying such a takeover even if Congress sought to use its lawmaking power to effectuate it,\u201d Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump has made clear that his efforts in D.C., where 700,000 taxpaying American citizens lack the protections of statehood, are part of a broader plan to militarize and federalize the streets of cities around America whose citizens voted against him,\u201d Raskin added, calling it a \u201chostile takeover.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump also sent National Guard troops<\/a> to the nation\u2019s capital, and tensions flared earlier in the week as officers set up checkpoints in the city.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration on Thursday escalated its takeover of the Metropolitan Police\u00a0 Department (MPD), with Attorney General Pam Bondi installing Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Terry Cole as Washington\u2019s \u201cemergency police commissioner<\/a>,\u201d while\u00a0rescinding policies<\/a>\u00a0that limited officers from taking policing actions purely for immigration enforcement purposes.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump\u2019s incursions against D.C. are among the most egregious attacks on D.C. home rule in decades,” Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur local police force, paid for by D.C. residents, should not be subject to federalization, an action that wouldn\u2019t be possible for any other police department in the country. No emergency exists in D.C. that the president did not create himself, and he is not using the D.C. police for federal purposes, as required by law.\u201d<\/p>\n

The legislation was co-sponsored by House Oversight ranking member Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) but cannot be taken up during the August recess. Once lawmakers return, it’s unlikely the GOP-controlled body would bring the legislation to the floor.<\/p>\n

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) sponsored a companion bill in the Senate.<\/p>\n

The lawmakers argue Trump\u2019s police takeover is only the latest in a string of actions they say undermine effective governance of the city, including on crime, though D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser\u2019s (D) budget fully funded MPD<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Congress failed to include<\/a> in its stopgap funding bill language that would allow D.C. to continue spending its local budget at fiscal 2025 levels \u2014 restricting $1 billion in city coffers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile Trump claims that federal control of D.C. is necessary to combat crime, the President\u2019s own actions are what is jeopardizing public safety in the District. He and his allies in Congress refuse to allow the District to access the $1 billion in locally-raised revenue that would have funded D.C. police, fire and emergency response services, and other public safety efforts,\u201d the lawmakers said in a joint release.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe fired and demoted dozens of D.C.\u2019s most experienced career prosecutors, contributing to a larger backlog of criminal cases being held up in court and longer wait times for crime victims to obtain justice.\u201d  <\/p>\n

Van Hollen said Trump was absent when D.C. \u201cactually needed support from the National Guard\u201d on Jan. 6. <\/p>\n

\u201cHis current takeover is an abuse of power and nothing more than a raw power grab,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe District of Columbia has made important progress on public safety in recent years, and can do more if Trump and House Republicans get the hell out of their way and stop blocking D.C. from accessing $1 billion of its own funds to strengthen policing and provide other public services.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A band of Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation to thwart President Trump\u2019s takeover of the Washington, D.C., police department, arguing the White House is exceeding its authority. The resolution would terminate Trump\u2019s Monday order,<\/p>\n

Continue reading <\/use> <\/svg>Democrats introduce bill to block Trump DC police takeover<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1761,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1759"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1759"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1760,"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1759\/revisions\/1760"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}