A book should be written about how Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), almost single-handedly, was able to get conservative Republicans in the House and liberal Democrats in the White House to come together to save the nation’s capital from bankruptcy.
In the meantime, policymakers in Washington should learn from this historic example and pass a D.C. Crime Control Board, based on 1995’s D.C. Financial Control Board.
Davis, from Fairfax, Va., came up with the idea of the control board, sold it to Eleanor Holmes Norton, who still is the District’s representative in Congress, and they sold it to then-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), who put it on the suspension calendar where it passed overwhelmingly, to the Senate, where it passed by voice vote, to Bill Clinton, who signed the bill into law, and to D.C.’s notorious mayor, Marion Barry, who largely supported the measure.
The D.C. Financial Control took the wheel from the corrupt D.C. council and steered the city from certain financial ruin to a vibrant and economically self-sufficient hub that attracted investment, new residents, and increased property values.
The Financial Control Board sorted out city finances, enacted pro-growth policies, weeded out corruption, vetoed bad spending ideas, and provided grown-up leadership to a city that had spun out of control. Republicans supported the control board because it liked its pro-growth policies. Democrats liked the control board because it meant that the Republican-controlled Congress wasn’t going to repeal home-rule in its entirety.
D.C.’s finances today are not the disaster that they were in the 1990s but crime is approaching the same levels as the deadly crack wars that swept the city during the Clinton years. And if the nation’s capital can’t control crime, a financial crisis will surely follow.
That’s why I am calling for Congress to pass legislation creating a D.C. Crime Control Board.
A crime control board will have total authority to stop crime in the city. It will do away with the D.C. Council’s ability to pass laws that make the city unsafe. It will directly take control of hiring the police chief and will be primarily responsible for hiring enough police officers to bring the force up to the numbers that it had before the pandemic. It will be directly in charge of D.C.’s attorney general and clean house to get rid of prosecutors who refuse to prosecute crimes. It will directly supervise the juvenile justice program and the youth summer jobs program. It will supervise D.C.’s education system efforts to prevent truancy and stop criminal behavior.
D.C.’s political leaders, especially at the council level, have brought this on themselves. Phil Mendelson, the council chair, famously said that the district doesn’t have a crime crisis, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Charles Allen, who during the Black Lives Matter riots was the chairman of the Judiciary and Public Safety Committee at the Council, proposed cutting millions in funding to the police budget. Other council members have been similarly anti-police in their rhetoric and their votes. Things have gotten so bad at the council when it comes to crime control that even Mayor Muriel Bowser has campaigned against their pro-crime stances.
The results in D.C. have been frightening, yet predictable. Carjackings are up. Murder rates are approaching crack-war levels. Street-crime is so common that most resident don’t even report them.
Some of these crimes should shock the public consciousness. A Kentucky teacher in town for a training course at the Library of Congress is slain outside of a residence hall at Catholic University. A Lyft driver who served as a translator in Afghanistan and somehow survived there is killed in Northeast D.C. Teen-agers routinely gunned down. Toddlers murdered in cross-fires.
None of this seems to shock us anymore. But it should. And it needs to stop. And it is needs to stop now.
It is time for a D.C. Crime Control Board. Where is Tom Davis when you need him?
Feehery, a partner at EFB Advocacy, blogs at thefeeherytheory.com. He served as spokesman to former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), as communications director to former House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and as a speechwriter to former House Minority Leader Bob Michel (R-Ill.).