While a second Trump term presents existential questions for many Washingtonians, DC’s self-governance could be facing an existential threat. Donald Trump has threatened to “take over” DC if elected, calling the city a “nightmare of murder and crime.” Emboldened by a decisive victory and full control of at least two branches of government, he could make good on his words. That’s even more likely if Republicans win the House of Representatives.  “Washington, DC will be under assault in a way that we haven’t seen in a very long time,” says Eugene Kinlow, a veteran DC politician who served as mayor Bowser’s director of federal and regional affairs. Efforts to erase DC’s self-determination, federalize its police force, weaken its gun laws, and change its social policies have been mounted in the past. Some have been quixotic long shots, others have been more successful.  But this time, DC politicians see an overhaul of the city’s government as a real possibility—and maybe even a certainty. Chuck Thies, a local political operative, puts it bluntly. “If the Republicans win control of Capitol Hill,” he says, “Home Rule as we know it is dead.” Since the Home Rule Act passed more than 50 years ago, giving DC its first mayor and council, the District has often had to contend with incursions into local politics by congressional Republicans. DC’s troubled finances were under the control of a Congress-appointed board from 1995 until 2001, giving the feds de facto say over decisions made by the council and two successive mayors. But Trump has taken a uniquely adversarial stance toward DC. Amid Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, Trump and his aides developed a plan for the federal government to take over DC’s police force, though it never came to fruition.  It’s not hard to imagine one reason that the District draws his ire: he won less than 5.5 percent of the vote here in 2020, and even as other urban areas around the country shifted to the right on Tuesday, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris won over 90 percent of the vote in DC.   Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s roadmap for governance during a second Trump term, makes some DC-specific recommendations: that Congress deregulate and expand a private school voucher program in the city, and that the Uniformed Division of the United States Secret Service enforce laws, which the document’s authors describe as “beholden to the trend of progressive pro-crime policies.”  Although Project 2025 doesn’t get into eliminating Home Rule, it’s on the wish list of some local Republicans frustrated with the DC Council. “Trump wants to do this, but he’s got other stuff to worry about,” says John Feehery, a former Republican congressional aide. “I’m not saying they’re going to take over the government, but God knows they need it.” John Capozzi, a former shadow representative for DC, thinks eliminating Home Rule is a top priority for Republicans, who are eager to point to the city as a symptom of Democratic failures. Their interventions, Capozzi believes, could wreak havoc on the District, from its public schools to its law enforcement. “This is going to go past anything people think,” Capozzi says. “There is nothing they can’t do, and there’s nothing they haven’t said they will do.” RelatedThe New Bill to Repeal DC Home Rule Is One Sentence Long Republicans would likely need a filibuster-proof Senate majority to abolish Home Rule altogether, and they have never presented a full-fledged plan for replacing DC’s imperfect but functional local government. Out-of-state lawmakers may imagine that federally-appointed commissioners, like the three who governed the District prior to home rule, could reduce crime or make other improvements. But running a city of 679,000 people—and actually being responsible for policy outcomes as opposed to criticizing those outcomes from the sidelines—is probably more work than they have in mind. DC shadow senator-elect Ankit Jain isn’t sure that Congress would consider such a sweeping overhaul worth its while.  “Do they want to become the municipal government for Washington DC?,” Jain says. “I don’t think that it’s in their interest to go forward with some of the more radical stuff that they’re talking about.” Republicans could selectively manage DC politics, too. Congress can review and override any bills passed by the DC Council, as it did with the criminal justice reform bill last year. Federal lawmakers can also make their approval of DC’s budget contingent on policy changes, a method they used in 2015 to bar the legalization of recreational marijuana. Under Trump, Washingtonians can probably expect more where that came. Washingtonian couldn’t reach Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee, who introduced a bill to end Home Rule, for comment. Mayor Bowser’s office declined to comment on the future of Home Rule until the mayor has finalized her public statement.   The District often needs to bargain with the federal government. There’s a particularly big horse trading session coming soon: Bowser is seeking the chance to redevelop RFK stadium into a new football stadium, but the bill intended to offer DC the federal lease is held up in the Senate, and unlikely to move through during a lame duck session.  Thies envisions those negotiations becoming far more painful next year, with congressional Republicans using the project as a bargaining chip. “You want a football stadium? Maybe we need to change gun control laws a little,” he says about a possible deal. “The mayor is very pragmatic. I could see her making some pragmatic decisions, but there are also red lines, like reproductive rights.” For most Washingtonians, that kind of bargaining is a reminder that despite DC’s staunchly Democratic voting preferences, we are uniquely subject to the whims of whatever party holds the legislative majority.  “This would be proving the fact that we’re actually a colony instead of a part of our democratic government of our country,” Capozzi says. “I think it’s up to every DC elected official to resist this.” Jain thinks that Republican attacks would throw the DC’s lack of representation into stark relief, making it obvious to people outside of the District that it needs to become the 51st state. “If you wouldn’t like the federal government coming in and taking control of your police force, setting policy on traffic safety, on emissions standards, on local legislation, around women’s right to choose,” Jain says, “[then] why would you want the federal government to do that to the people of Washington, DC?”The post Could Trump’s Second Term Spell the End of Home Rule in DC? first appeared on Washingtonian.