President Donald Trump has taken control over the Washington D.C. Police Department, claiming that the nation’s capital “has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people”. Many are claiming that President Trump taking control is an overreach of federal authority; they are wrong. His actions could be considered an abuse of federal authority or poor judgment, but not a federal overreach.
There has been one consistent conflict existing within American democracy since its 1776 beginning. The federal versus state conflict of where state powers end and federal powers begin, and vice versa. The conflict of where state powers end and federal powers begin was so divisive that it caused the Civil War. When American citizens staged the 2021 January 6th riot in the nation’s capital to overthrow the democratically elected federal government, it was a 21st-century reminder of the 18th-century reason why it was then and continues to be today, a requirement to draw a line where state power ends and federal power begins.
In the weeks preceding the 2021 January 6th Capitol Hill insurrection, in anticipation of the upcoming 2020 election protest demonstrations Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser in a letter addressed to former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, former Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy and former acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller rejected federal assistance saying, “The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) is prepared for this week’s First Amendment activities. The protection of persons and property is our utmost concern and responsibility. MPD is well-trained and prepared to lead the law enforcement, coordination, and response.”
Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser calls President Trump’s federal takeover of police department ‘unsettling.’ Kevin Dietsch/Getty
This became one of the reasons that the Capitol Hill Police were so undermanned in repelling the riot. Mayor Bowser rejected federal assistance for the same reason that 3 former Governors of New York, Virginia, and Delaware all refused, a first-term President Trump’s request, to send National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., after several days of protest over the death of George Floyd. Former Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia at the time said: “I am not going to send our men and women in uniform, a very proud National Guard, to Washington for a photo op.” Northam’s quote reflected the concern that Bowser and the 2 other former Governors had over President Trump ordering federal police to use tear gas to clear peaceful demonstrators from a park near the White House, so he could take his infamous 2020 walk to a nearby church and pose with a Bible.
Since Bowser is not the governor of a state or mayor of a traditional incorporated city, but a chief executive of a federal District, after the January 6th riot began, her request for no federal assistance could be ignored and was overruled without even speaking to her, and federal troops were ordered into Washington, D.C. by former Vice President Mike Pence. If Washington D.C. statehood were a reality the federal District would be limited to the White House, the Capitol, federal office buildings, and federal monuments but not the streets that lead to them, the streets would belong to the state of Washington D.C. So theoretically, based on recent conservative “states-rights” ideological decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, when the January 6th riot occurred a Governor Bowser of the state of Washington D.C. could not have been ignored or overruled. Her “states-rights” PERMISSION would have been required for federal troops to access the streets that lead to the Capitol or other federal buildings such as the White House.
It was this same scenario that caused the Founding Fathers to grant authority over wherever the nation’s capital is located to the U.S. Congress. In 1783, after America’s Revolutionary War to gain independence from Great Britain, unpaid Revolutionary soldiers blocked the doors to a meeting of the Continental Congress and refused to allow the delegates to leave until they were paid. The state of Pennsylvania, where the Continental Congress was meeting, refused to call out its state militia to deal with the unruly soldiers, forcing the Continental Congress to adjourn and meet in a different state.
Department of Homeland Security Investigations agents join Washington Metropolitan Police Department officers as they conduct traffic checks at a checkpoint along 14th Street in northwest Washington, Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
This convinced the Founding Fathers that Congress must have ultimate control of any territory where the federal government conducted its business. Founding Father James Madison wrote in The Federalist No. 43, “Without it, not only the public authority might be insulted and its proceedings interrupted with impunity; but a dependence of the members of the general government on the State comprehending the seat of the government, for protection in the exercise of their duty, might bring on the national councils an imputation of awe or influence, equally dishonorable to the government and dissatisfactory to the other members of the Confederacy”.
As a result to create a national capital that was separate from and not subject to the jurisdiction of any American state Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 of the U.S. Constitution states: The Congress shall have Power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States.
The COVID-19 pandemic was another demonstration of the need to draw a line where state power ends and federal power begins. During the pandemic crisis, many governors of states refused to follow federal guidelines on mask wearing or not, on reopening schools, and on restarting their state economies by allowing businesses to reopen. Washington D.C. statehood would prevent any President from the possibility, if required for health, safety, or national security reasons, of establishing a square mile mask-wearing zone around the White House, Capitol Hill, or the Pentagon. Because all federal buildings would be literally surrounded by state streets or state property, and the state could order all businesses in the state located on the same streets that lead to the doorstep of every federal building, park, or monument, to defy a President’s federal guidance to wear a mask.
Since there is no real crime emergency in Washington D.C. deployed troops were seen posing for pictures with tourists on the National Mall near the Washington Monument
But the second most important reason why the territory where the federal government conducts its business must be controlled only by the U.S. Congress, to preserve the American Constitution’s First Amendment rights of freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. Since 2017, 21 red-state legislatures have passed more than 36 laws that have either penalized or attempted to outlaw peaceful protesting. Suppose the state of Washington D.C. had a pro-life governor, based on the governing example of current conservative pro-life governors, a pro-life Washington D.C. governor could decide to deny pro-choice protesters access to the state roads that lead to the U.S. House and Senate, or the ones that lead to the Supreme Court, thus denying the pro-choice protestors their freedom of assembly and freedom of speech rights.
Based on the statistical crime facts, D.C.’s Mayor, D.C.’s City Council, D.C.’s citizens, and D.C.’s local news media, Washington D.C. is not experiencing a crime emergency, nor has it been overtaken by violent gangs, bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs, and homeless people. So if you disagree with President Trump’s takeover of the D.C. Police, you can fault him with having poor judgment of the facts, but not with federal overreach. As President of the United States, he is the chief law enforcement authority for all federal territory.
The American Constitution is clear: the federal government dictates to and regulates the states, and the states do not dictate to or regulate the federal government. Southern-state slavery, the Civil War, northern-state discrimination, and the numerous instances of state-sanctioned voter suppression efforts currently taking place throughout the United States, validates the wisdom of the Founding Fathers constitutionally mandating that state rights should never prevent the functionality of the federal government, and should never prevent an American citizen from exercising rights granted to them by the American Constitution.
D.C. Police Chief Pamela A. Smith said the extra patrols of FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and Homeland Security Department agents initiated by President Trump’s federal takeover this week have helped authorities arrest criminals who would otherwise remain on the loose. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Therefore, the federal government should not diminish, subjugate, or endanger its constitutional duty to be the final arbiter of American democracy, American equality, American justice, and American freedom by surrounding itself in Washington, D.C. statehood.