Make D.C. safe again

Washington, D.C. in the summertime should be a season of fireworks shows, outdoor performances by military marching bands, and busloads of eighth-graders on class trips to the nation’s capital. In the past few decades, Washington has joined New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles as the fourth truly global-status city in America, with world-class dining (seven Jose Andres restaurants), multiple Shakespeare theaters, and all the artistic and cultural treasures of the Smithsonian.

Yet the sad reality is that this Washington coexists in overlapping spaces with another Washington: one of failing schools, widespread poverty, and pervasive crime. Just one in three D.C. public school students meets grade-level expectations in English language arts; just one in four is on grade-level in math. While four of the ten wealthiest counties in America are located in the D.C. suburbs, many neighborhoods in D.C. are not much different from the worst neighborhoods in Detroit, Cleveland, or Newark.

And so it is no surprise that D.C. is riven by one of the highest crime rates in the nation, which has led to Monday’s announcement by President Trump that he is taking direct federal control of the Metropolitan Police Department and deploying the National Guard to bring violence under control in the nation’s capital city. Opponents of the president's plan point out that crime is down in the district compared to recent years, though that's part of a national trend post-pandemic. The key statistic is how D.C. rates relative to similarly sized cities—its homicide rate is among the five worst in the nation.

The need for such action is the direct results of decades of Democratic mismanagement of the district under the Mayor-City Council model. Who can forget Marion Barry, the city’s mayor in the 1980s and 90s who was caught in a cocaine sting at a Ramada Inn? The city has gentrified in many neighborhoods since then, with an influx of 20-something lawyers, government contractors, and nonprofit advocates—many of whom are ardent liberals. In the 2020 presidential election, over 90 percent of District voters chose Kamala Harris. This incredible Democratic tilt has led to a city dominated by “Black Lives Matter” politics.

News commentators and even D.C.’s attorney general have called Trump’s order “unprecedented,” but the reality is that many states have been forced to exercise similar responsibility for the failures of other blue cities. Kansas City and St. Louis, both in Missouri, find their police forces under the control of state-appointed boards. The Mississippi State Legislature created an expanded policing district within Jackson to address widespread crime in that state’s capital city.

This is part of a broader pattern of policies whereby state governments take over bankrupt, failing, and unsafe cities. The State of Michigan, for instance, has used its emergency manager statute to take over both Detroit and Flint city government. About half the states allow for the state government to take over management of failing school districts, laws that have been used in Houston, Texas, Little Rock, Ark., and Gary, Ind., among scores of others. Just last week, South Carolina’s Superintendent of Education Ellen Weaver took responsibility for Jasper County public schools.

State—or in this case, federal—intervention reflects the subordinate nature of cities in our governmental system. Our system is built recognizing the sovereignty of states and ultimately the federal government as the embodiment of “we the people”—cities, school districts, and police departments are created and funded by state governments (or, in the case of D.C., by Congress and the Constitution itself). When lower units of government fail in their responsibilities to provide core public goods like education and public safety, then the next higher level of government intervenes to guarantee those goods.

In this particular case, the federal government has a particular duty to the District of Columbia. The District is the nation’s capital, home to the U.S. Capitol and White House and dozens of government agency buildings with tens of thousands of federal employees. It also houses over 180 embassies and the Organization of American States, the regional alliance of the western hemisphere, and all those diplomats expect security from the host city.

President Trump ran on a promise of public safety. His executive order for D.C. is part of his larger public-safety agenda centered on the southern border, ICE, and deportation starting with criminal illegal aliens. Let’s hope he succeeds in his promise to make America’s cities safe again.