OPINION:
President Trump’s recent comments regarding the future of D.C. home rule have reignited a debate that many in Washington would prefer to avoid.
Yet after more than five decades of home rule, Washington residents have every reason to ask whether the current system is delivering the accountability, public safety and fiscal responsibility they were promised.
For years, D.C. leaders have treated home rule itself as beyond question. Meanwhile, residents have watched crime rise, city agencies struggle, schools underperform and taxpayers shoulder the cost of repeated government failures.
The issue is not whether Washington deserves good government; the issue is whether the current structure is producing good government.
Congress has both the constitutional authority and the responsibility to govern the nation’s capital under Article I, Section 8, Clause 17. If the status quo is failing residents, reform should not be off limits.
More importantly, reform does not mean chaos. Solutions exist. THE TRIFECTA offers one blueprint forward: Home Rule Reform to restore accountability, ONE & DONE to interrupt cycles of youth crime through early intervention, and DC DOGE to identify waste, duplication and inefficiency in government spending.
The question is no longer whether home rule should be debated. The question is why it has been exempted from debate for so long.
LORI FURSTENBERG
Chair, Washington, D.C. chapter, the Conservative Caucus
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