WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump has said federal control over Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department should last more than 30 days.
“We’re going to be asking for extensions on that—long-term extensions,” the president told reporters on Aug. 13 at the Kennedy Center.
Under the District of Columbia Home Rule Act of 1973, the president can declare an emergency and take over the police department in the nation’s capital city for two days. He can prolong that for 30 days by notifying Congress.
For the emergency to be extended further, Congress must give the go-ahead. That effort could face a filibuster from Democrats in the Senate.
On X, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called the takeover “a political ploy and attempted distraction.”
Trump also floated declaring a national emergency, suggesting it might enable him to sidestep the D.C. Home Rule Act’s limitations if Congress does not act.
“I don’t want to call a national emergency. If I have to, I will, but I think the Republicans in Congress will approve this pretty much unanimously,” he said.
The House and the Senate, which are both under Republican control, are in recess until early September. That’s within 30 days of when Trump first declared a crime emergency to restore safety in Washington on Aug. 11.
Trump has also activated the National Guard to assist the federalized police in combating crime. Those troops started arriving in the city on Aug. 12.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has praised the president’s takeover, writing on X, “House Republicans support this effort to clean up Washington, end the crime wave, and restore the beauty of the greatest capital in the world.”
“President Trump is rightly using executive power to take bold and necessary action to crack down on crime and restore law and order in Washington, D.C.,” Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, which has jurisdiction over the District of Columbia, said in a statement on Aug. 11.
Comer has also announced that the committee would hold a hearing involving D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and other local officials next month.
In the upper chamber, the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee has jurisdiction over the District of Columbia.
The NY Budgets also reached out to that committee’s chair, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), for comment on the president’s request but did not receive a response by publication time.
Trump also told a reporter he hopes to advance new crime legislation.
“It’s going to pertain initially to D.C.,” he said.
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) reintroduced the D.C. Criminal Reforms to Immediately Make Everyone Safe (CRIMES) Act in Congress on Aug. 8.
The legislation would not permit offenders older than 18 to be charged as youth offenders. That category now extends to individuals as old as 24.
The D.C. CRIMES Act would also create a website to track juvenile crime in the city and prevent the district’s city council from altering criminal liability sentences.
In 2024, a previous version of the D.C. CRIMES Act passed the GOP-controlled House 225–181, netting the support of all Republicans and 18 Democrats.
It died in a committee in the Senate, which was at that time controlled by Democrats.
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