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President Donald Trump’s grip on Washington D.C.’s police force continued into a second week, spurring Democrats to reignite demands for the district to become a state.
Trump last week invoked a provision of the Home Rule Act, the law that gives the nation’s capital some autonomy from Congress, to effectively take over the Metropolitan Police Department in an effort to crack down on crime.
Since then, numerous federal law enforcement agencies and the National Guard, aided by reserves from states across the country, have patrolled the streets of D.C., and the White House has touted rapid decreases in crime and dozens of arrests.
CAPITOL HILL PREPARES FOR HIGH-STAKES BATTLE OVER TRUMP CRIME PACKAGE, DC POLICE AUTHORITY
President Donald Trump listens to a question from a reporter on Aug. 11, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (AP/Mark Schiefelbein)
Because it’s not a state, Washington has no voting representation in Congress and, despite having a mayor and city council, is overseen by Congress.
But some lawmakers see the move as another attempt by the president to overextend his powers, and argue that it’s another reason that D.C. should be a state — a notion that Trump last week rebuked as “ridiculous.”
“If D.C. was a state, the president could not do what he is doing outside of the federal enclave,” Sen. Paul Strauss, the district’s shadow senator, told Fox News Digital.
Strauss, D-D.C., has long pushed for statehood in his role as shadow senator, Washington D.C.’s elected non-voting member of the Senate. He said the whole idea behind statehood is to give D.C. residents agency and self-determination, something he believed the crackdown was ignoring.
“It would be one thing if we actually had a crime emergency here, but we don’t,” Strauss said. “Violent crime in particular is down to 30-year lows. That’s not what’s happening here. He is using these national guardsmen and women as a stunt, and that’s wrong.”
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