President Trump can help the nation, himself, and federal employees by moving agencies out of Washington, D.C. The benefits might include:
Before considering these important benefits, a little background information is needed.
Earlier this year, the President vowed to move 100,000 employees out of Washington, D.C. His administration gave agency heads until April 14, 2025 to submit plans for relocating their respective bureaus from D.C. to less costly areas in the heartland.
However, those plans seem to be on hold or entirely scrapped. A few weeks ago the director of the Office of Personnel Management stated that, with the exception of a couple thousand employees with the Department of Agriculture, there are no plans to relocate positions. Scott Kupor said “I don’t think there’s any stated effort to kind of move jobs out of D.C. into other areas.”
If the plans have changed, that is a huge mistake.
Fairer judges and juries
As we all know, courts and jurors in the Washington D.C. vicinity lean decidedly to the Left, and this makes it very hard for a conservative to get a fair trial.
Theoretically, this should not be a big problem. A conservative defendant can simply request a change of venue. However, liberal judges almost never grant such requests.
For example, numerous January 6th defendants realized that they could not get a fair trial in Washington D.C. but, to my knowledge, none was granted a venue change. As stated in Politico:
Many of the more than 150 Jan. 6 defendants who have gone to trial have argued for a change of venue on the basis of political bias of the jury pool or lingering anger over the events of Jan. 6. However, federal judges in Washington have uniformly rejected those challenges, responding that the process for questioning potential jurors was sufficient to weed out potential bias.
Even if D.C. judges were reasonable, venue for criminal trials is rigidly prescribed by Article III and the 6th Amendment to the Constitution: Normally, the venue must be within the state or district in which the alleged crime was committed. For a president and/or his administration that is usually the District of Columbia.
Although there are different legal standards for civil trials, the end result would probably be similar. For a sitting president and/or his administration, civil venue would most likely be D.C. or a neighboring blue state.
Currently, cases involving D.C. and/or U.S. agencies are typically handled by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, and the chief judge of that court is the Trump-hating James Boasberg. Of the 15 judges in that district, 11 were appointed by Obama or other Democrat presidents.
The federal rules related to venue are extremely complex; however, the Trump Administration might be able to avoid left-wing D.C. judges and juries by moving agencies to more balanced and reasonable locales such as Ohio or West Virginia. The Administration would not have a slam-dunk argument, but relocating out of D.C. could be helpful.
Cost savings for the government and its employees
The physical location of an agency is a critical government cost factor. Perhaps the biggest single cost factor is salary cost.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2023 American Community Survey (ACS), published on September 12, 2024, Washington D.C.’s average household income was far higher than that of any of the 50 states. The U.S. average was $77,719, while the D.C. average was $108,210.
D.C.’s high household income is needed by workers because it is expensive to live there, where housing costs are 37% higher than the rest of the nation.
National security in the event of cyber and other types of foreign attacks
Diversifying the locations of government employees and assets could make the government more secure. For example, a widespread power outage or cyber attack affecting the east coast might be less of a problem if the government operates from diverse locations.
Recently, researchers at the University of Maryland developed a “heat map” showing the most critical and vulnerable areas of the nation, in the event of a cyber attack. That map shows that, by far, the Washington D.C. area has the highest degree of cybersecurity risk.
Employees who are socially and politically more balanced and objective
Most people working in the federal government lean towards left-wing values. In part this is due to affirmative action and DEI programs. However, another reason is simply that government agencies are concentrated in and near Washington D.C., Virginia, and Maryland -- all of which are heavily populated with Democrats.
In an op-ed published in the New York Post, the data and analytics director at the Foundation for Government Accountability asserts that, among senior government bureaucrats, “Democrats have a 30-point advantage over Republicans -- a number that has barely budged in at least three decades.” Note that “senior bureaucrats” are the ones who oversee federal regulations and decide whether agencies are following the policies of the President.
A recent survey conducted by the Napolitan Institute found that 46 percent of federal government managers would ignore Trump’s policies and implement their own -- even if they believed Trump’s policies were legal.
Conclusion
Moving thousands of D.C. employees to other locations would involve difficulties. During Trump’s first term, efforts to relocate employees led to numerous complaints from employees, and they led to large-scale resignations (not necessarily a bad thing). And there are always costs related to the physical relocation of assets and facilities.
In the long term, however, legal fairness would be promoted, national security risk could be reduced, and the cost savings would probably be substantial.
Most significantly, this is an opportunity for President Trump to fundamentally change the nature and character of the federal workforce for decades to come.
Joe Fried is an Ohio-based CPA and the author of Debunked? An auditor reviews the 2020 election -- and the lessons learned. In that book, Joe argues that the 2020 election should not have been certified. In addition, Joe has assisted various attorneys representing January 6th defendants. His totally free substack account is found at joefrieD.C.pa.substack.com.
Image: AT via Magic Studio