Fears over how the incoming Trump administration could shake up the nation’s capital have been voiced loud and clear by Democrats since Election Day. 

During an annual Christmas tree lighting at Washington, D.C.’s Eastern Market this month, Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat who has been the District of Columbia’s sole representative in the House for decades, even took a moment away from festive cheer to raise “fears about what the second Trump administration will mean for D.C. and its residents.”

“Trump’s threats to home rule are the latest reason why Congress must pass our D.C. statehood bill,” she said. 

Despite Norton’s fears, the federal government’s active role in district governance is nothing new. Here’s a look into a few of the many times the federal government has stepped on the district’s toes.

Lawmakers restricted funding for abortions

Under legislation Congress passed decades ago, D.C. is restricted from using Medicaid funds to cover abortions. Over 40% of D.C.’s population is covered by Medicaid, a joint federal-state program that provides health coverage to low-income people. 

Congress passed the Hyde Amendment in the 1970s to prevent states from allocating federal dollars, including Medicaid, to fund abortions. Lawmakers went a step further in the District of Columbia in 1988 when Congress banned the use of local taxpayer funds to pay for abortions except in the cases of rape, incest, and life endangerment.

Still, the district had the highest rates of abortion in the U.S. last year. Approximately 9,170 women had abortions in D.C. in 2023, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

Congressional lawmakers have also for years targeted the district’s 2014 Reproductive Health Nondiscrimination Act, which prevents employers from firing employees who had an abortion. 

Arguing the law could force employers to violate their religious beliefs, House Republicans have engaged in annual, though unsuccessful, endeavors to attach provisions to Congress’s annual spending package that would prevent D.C. from funding the policy.

Culture clashes: Fights over gay marriage and assisted suicide

Before D.C. legalized same-sex marriage fifteen years ago, some congressional Republicans proposed legislation that would have prevented the district from enacting the law. 

Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and former Rep. Dan Boren were among the conservatives who introduced a bill in May 2009 that aimed to define marriage in D.C. as a “union of one man and one woman.”

“The family is truly the foundational institution of our nation, and marriage is its cornerstone,” Jordan said.

The battle ultimately fizzled out after then-D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty signed a bill in December 2009 legalizing same-sex marriage.

Physician-assisted suicide was another controversial policy that stoked divisions between the district and Congress.

The District of Columbia Death with Dignity Act became law in 2016, allowing terminally ill adults to voluntarily end their life by with assistance from D.C. doctors.

After the law went into effect in 2017, House Republicans passed a spending bill with provisions repealing physician-assisted suicide.

Rep. Brad R. Wenstrup (R-OH) also introduced a bipartisan resolution condemning the policy alongside an emotional press conference with terminally ill patients against the measure.

However, efforts to overturn the district’s policy failed that year. Similar tactics, particularly in 2017, have failed multiple times in subsequent years, with House Republicans most recently trying to include provisions in the 2023 spending bill that would have overhauled the policy. 

Federal marijuana laws led to local loopholes   

People may legally possess marijuana in the district under a local law passed in 2015. However, as consumption remains illegal under federal law, Congress has limited D.C. implementation of the policy. 

Marijuana users are not allowed to be in possession of the drug on federal property, which accounts for roughly one-third of the land in the district. In accordance with provisions in annual spending laws passed by Congress, the sale of cannabis is also not legal in the district.

Although a thriving gray market exists due to a caveat allowing the “gifting” of cannabis products, an amendment commonly known as the Harris Rider has been tacked on to Congress’s annual appropriations bill since 2014, keeping the district from implementing more liberal policies. 

District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser has led the city in fighting Congress for the legalization of the sale of recreational cannabis that would render “gifting” policies unnecessary. 

Clinton implemented congressional oversight of DC’s deficit

D.C. was granted home rule in 1973. But roughly two decades into the experiment, the federal government decided the city needed help to avoid falling off a fiscal cliff. 

President Clinton signed a law in 1995 that created a powerful financial oversight board to monitor the D.C. government. The District of Columbia Financial Control Board holds sweeping authority over the city council and the D.C. mayor, overseeing municipal spending, borrowing, hiring, and more.

Clinton’s move came as an effort to address D.C.’s ballooning deficit, as the district was facing insolvency. The new board required that the budget be balanced within four years, further mandating that the budget remain balanced for an additional four years. 

After the Control Board failed to solve deficit issues, the Clinton administration announced a formal Revitalization Plan in 1997, which the White House said would help “home rule to succeed.”

Allowing the district to borrow from the Federal treasury to finance between $400 to $500 million in debt, the plan gave control over D.C.’s $5 billion unfunded pension liability back to the federal government. It also permanently established the Office of the Chief Financial Officer.

However, the district’s fiscal challenges have continued. This year, D.C. is facing a $700 million deficit. 

Congress tipped the scales toward charter schools

Federal changes to how D.C. approached charter schools were also instituted during the Clinton administration. 

Title I of the Omnibus Consolidated Rescissions and Appropriations Act of 1996, which was passed by Congress that year, amended the District of Columbia School Reform Act of 1995. 

The amendment made charter schools part of the public education system in Washington. It also created the D.C. Public Charter School Board, which operates as an independent local government agency. 

Because they are not under the direct control of the mayor or the D.C. city council, charter schools have greater autonomy to create their own policies.

Over 47,000 students were enrolled in D.C.’s 134 charter schools in 2024. Slightly less than half of all the district’s public school students were enrolled in charter schools in 2019, according to the Center for American Progress. 

A significant portion of funding for the district’s public and charter schools comes from the federal government. In the 2023 D.C. budget, 18% of funds came from the federal government or intra-district funding. 

Some of the money stems from a law former President Barack Obama signed in 2015 called the Every Student Succeeds Act.

“The federal government sets the rules for these programs [Every Student Succeeds Act] and determines the appropriate funding levels. Neither the mayor nor the DC Council have authority over these funds,” noted the DC Fiscal Policy Institute. 

The district also received more than $600 million in total federal relief funding for schools following the pandemic, according to DCFPI, with $386 million coming from President Biden’s 2021 American Rescue Plan. The funds, which were distributed primarily through federal grants known as Elementary and Secondary Emergency Relief Funds, have composed over 6% of the total funding for the district’s school budgets since fiscal year 2022. 

However, the district continues to face educational challenges. The D.C. Office of the State Superintendent of Education standardized testing results showed 69% of students were not reading proficiently at grade level in 2022.

More recently…

Last year, Congress blocked the district council’s move to rewrite the criminal code for the nation’s capital.

The 2023 crime bill reduced penalties for crimes such as armed carjacking and would have expanded jury trials for certain criminal misdemeanor offenses, which critics suggested would result in result in prosecutors dropping cases. 

“What we’ve got is a D.C. city council that seems to be completely bent on achieving some sort of woke messaging on criminal justice reform, as opposed to worrying about the safety and security of people,” Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) told NPR. Local politicians pushed back on the messaging from Congressional Republicans.

Changes to D.C. traffic policy is another area congressional lawmakers are eying. 

The district approved a ban on right turns at red lights two years ago, becoming one of the few places in the country to do so. 

Some lawmakers are also complaining about relatively new automated traffic-enforcement cameras that ticket drivers for speeding. Within the first half of 2024, just one traffic safety camera located on the Potomac River Freeway had racked up $5.9 million in fines. 

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House Republicans tried and failed over the summer to include provisions in the annual spending bill targeting both the red light turn ban and automated traffic enforcement cameras. 

When lawmakers tried to similarly repeal the district’s automated traffic enforcement from last year, the effort crashed then as well, with D.C. City Council member Charles Allen claiming that such an action could spur a $1 billion budget shortfall.