Republican bill to repeal DC home rule back in spotlight after DOGE staffer assaulted

WASHINGTON (CN) — Congressional Republicans have renewed calls to roll back Washington, D.C.’s legal self-governance following an assault that left a prominent staffer for the Trump administration’s U.S Department of Government Efficiency injured.

The renewed focus on D.C.’s home rule follows a weekend attack on Edward Coristine, the 19-year-old DOGE staffer better known by his online alias “Big Balls.”

Images circulated on social media Tuesday night of a battered and bloodied person, identified as Coristine, who had reportedly been injured during a carjacking attempt in the capital’s northwest quadrant. According to a report from D.C. Metropolitan Police, the assault took place around 3:00 a.m. on Sunday. Police arrested two 15-year-old suspects at the scene, but others fled.

The attack prompted a furious response from President Donald Trump, who threatened to initiate a federal takeover of D.C. in a Tuesday post on his social media platform Truth Social.

“If D.C. doesn’t get its act together, and quickly, we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the City, and run this City how it should be run, and put criminals on notice that they’re not going to get away with it anymore,” wrote Trump.

Elon Musk, the one-time head of DOGE, acknowledged that a staffer for the government efficiency outfit had been injured in the Sunday assault, writing in a post on X that Coristine had been “severely beaten to the point of concussion.”

“It is time to federalize D.C.,” said Musk.

Lawmakers, particularly Republicans, have long accused D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and the City Council of failing to sufficiently crack down on crime in the nation’s capital. And in February, two members of Congress introduced a bill that would nullify the city’s legal ability to self-govern.

Dubbed the “Bringing Oversight to Washington and Safety to Every Resident,” or BOWSER, Act, the bill offered by Utah Senator Mike Lee and Tennessee Representative Andy Ogles would simply repeal the 1973 District of Columbia Home Rule Act — a move that would bring D.C. back under complete federal control.

The Home Rule Act grants the nation’s capital only limited self-governance, establishing the role of an elected mayor and a 13-member City Council while Congress retains control over many of the city’s major functions. Lawmakers have authority over the municipal budget and can review city laws approved by the mayor. D.C. does not have any voting representatives in Congress.

In a post on X Tuesday, Ogles touted the proposed BOWSER Act, writing that “urban youths” in D.C. are killing people and that city leadership is “doing nothing.”

“@BasedMikeLee and I have the solution: repeal D.C. Home Rule and take back the city,” the Tennessee Republican said. “People are dead because the D.C. City Council let violent thugs run loose. We will prevail.”

Lee wrote in his own post on X that D.C. should be governed through Congress “as the Constitution originally provided.”

“Our nation’s capital deserves to be a shining example to the world, not a national embarrassment,” said the Utah senator.

A spokesperson for Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.’s nonvoting member of Congress, did not immediately return a request for comment. Norton, though, has condemned previous attempts by lawmakers to exercise authority over the capital city.

Congress in recent years has stepped in on several occasions to block municipal policing and criminal justice laws. Lawmakers in 2023 passed a resolution blocking D.C.’s sweeping policing reform package which would have increased transparency in police records and barred officers from using certain chokeholds while making arrests.

Congressional Republicans also championed a separate measure blocking a D.C. law that would have relaxed penalties for certain low-level crimes and lowered minimum sentences for more serious offenses. Then-President Joe Biden supported the GOP-led effort to roll back the measure.

Testifying before the House Oversight Committee in March 2023, D.C. City Council chairman Phil Mendelson slammed congressional efforts to block municipal law, suggesting that Republican lawmakers concerned about crime in the capital city were exaggerating. He argued at the time that D.C.’s violent crime rate had halved over the past decade.

“I know this belies the common belief — and when it comes to crime, how people feel is important — but there is not a crime crisis in Washington, D.C.,” Mendelson said.

In 2024, Republicans again offered a bill that would undo the capital city’s law allowing judges to hand down lighter sentences for criminal defendants under 25 years old. The measure would have moved that threshold down to people under the age of 18.

Norton at the time called the proposed resolution “radical, undemocratic and paternalistic.”

According to D.C. police statistics, violent crime has dropped roughly 26% in the capital city as of August, compared with statistics from 2024. Homicides have declined around 12%, while recorded assaults declined around 20%. Those figures continue a trend of decreasing violent crime — the nation’s capital reported a 35% drop in such criminal activity last year.

Still, several high-profile crimes against members of Congress and their staff have riled Capitol Hill. A 21-year-old intern for Kansas Representative Ron Estes was murdered last month in a triple shooting in northwest D.C. And in 2023, a staffer for Kentucky Senator Rand Paul was stabbed in what appeared to be a random attack.

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