The Relationship Between Congress And D.C.: It's Complicated

Over the holiday break, many Washingtonians were out of town visiting family, or enjoying getaways in balmier climes.

But not members of the D.C. Cannabis Campaign: the group behind Initiative 71. That’s the measure that would legalize the possession and cultivation of small amounts of marijuana in the District. Voters in November approved Initiative 71 by more than two to one. But last month, Republicans in Congress inserted a provision into the federal budget that would bar D.C. from spending money to implement the law.

Thus, campaign members have been busy preparing for an event they're planning: the Protest in Favor of DC Democracy, a 24/7 vigil of sorts, outside the Capitol Building.

As campaign chair Adam Eidinger explains, because a majority of voters ratified the marijuana Initiative, the Home Rule Act requires that D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson send the bill up to Capitol Hill for congressional review.

“Once Congress gets to review the initiative, we have to start a vigil, to show that people are watching, and they can't just overturn an election,” he says. “We're not just going to let it happen. And we can't let democracy be willy-nilly overturned.”

Not relieving many burdens

But if you ask someone like Johnny Barnes — a lawyer who was chief of staff to Walter Fauntroy, D.C.’s first non-voting delegate to Congress — he’ll tell you it wouldn't be the first time the federal government "meddled" in D.C.’s affairs.

“Congress would tell us for any reason, for no reason, arbitrarily, capriciously, even whimsically, and I’m talking about after Home Rule! They would try to tell us how to live and how to die,” he says.

Under Home Rule, Congress can veto every law approved by D.C. voters or D.C. government. And it’s used this veto power on everything from abortion spending to gun control.

“I say [they] tell us how to live and how to die; our council passed a euthanasia bill, and Congress debated it! So they've always interfered,” he says.

And that, Barnes feels, is pretty ironic, given the language in the Home Rule Act’s very first paragraph.

“It says: ‘To relieve the Congress of the burden of legislating for the District of Columbia,’” he recites. “That was the stated purpose.” And to some extent, that did happen, says political science professor Michael Fauntroy, Walter’s nephew.

“Congress does not have to bog itself down in all kinds of local minutiae that they previously did. I mean, everything from trash pickup to schools,” he explains.

“However,” he goes on to say, “Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17 of the Constitution grants Congress all authority in all matters whatsoever. And so that’s the sort of back-stop for all of this.”

Fauntroy wrote extensively about home rule in his 2003 book, Home Rule or House Rule? Congress and the Erosion of Local Governance in the District of Columbia.

When asked what he sees is the difference between the two kinds of rule in the book’s title, he says “at some level the people who make our decisions are elected by us. But those decisions can be undone by people who aren't elected by us.”

And the main motivation for such “undoing,” Fauntroy says, is “almost always purely political. Because they have an opportunity to use local issues to grandstand for their constituents back home.”

A political poster calling for voting rights in the District from 2006. (DC Vote)

Budget, budget, budget

But Congressional interference goes beyond using D.C. as a “free vote” to further one’s political agenda, says economist Alice Rivlin: a former presidential budget director and current fellow at the Brookings Institution. For instance: Congress must approve D.C.’s budget.

“And it complicates the job of running the city,” she says.

For one thing, the city has to start its fiscal year when the federal government does: “The first of October,” she says. “Maybe later, because the Congress is often late on approving budgets."

The norm for states, however, is July 1.

“And the main reason is the states and localities run school systems,” Rivlin explains. “And school systems start the end of August, and they need to know what their budget is."

Speaking of “budgets,” Rivlin got to know D.C.’s budget intimately. She chaired the District of Columbia Financial Control Board, which Congress created in 1995, when D.C. was facing a deficit of more than $700 million.

“The Control Board was very unpopular in much of the city,” she recalls. “It was viewed as federal interference with local affairs, which was exactly what it was! And it was seen as an extension of Congressional power over the city.”

By 2001, Rivlin says, the Board’s oversight of city finances had turned things around, and the group disbanded after D.C. balanced its fourth consecutive budget. Though, technically, the Board could come back.

“If the city got into serious trouble again, we would not have to do what we had to do in 1995 and get a new law passed,” she explains. “The law is there and the Congress and the President could simply activate it.”

Most agree that’s unlikely, since the same legislation that established the Control Board also created the position of Chief Financial Officer: giving someone direct control over day-to-day financial operations of each District agency.

An unwelcome overseer

But the point is, in so many ways, if D.C. looks over its shoulder, Congress is there.

Or, the way Adam Eidinger sees it, after what’s happened with Congress blocking Initiative 71, no matter which way D.C. looks, Congress is there.

“I had so many people tell me they registered to vote for the first time in Washington, D.C. because of this initiative," he says. “We've been wracking our brains what to do. What can we do? You know, we feel so powerless."

Newly-elected D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser says she plans to help. In an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press, she announced the city will "explore every option" to ensure Initiative 71 is enacted.

[Music: "Tomorrow Comes Today" by Gorillaz from Gorillaz ]