Editor’s Note: This column was coauthored by Thomas Jipping, a senior legal fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

People can disagree about whether President Donald Trump had to send the National Guard to help fight crime in the nation’s capital, but it seems to have already reduced crime rates in the city. And most people who live or work in Washington, as we do, surely welcome the increased security.

But not all. One person who doesn’t seem to get it is — wait for it — Washington attorney general, Brian Schwalb. This is the same prosecutor who has pledged never to try a juvenile as an adult, no matter how heinous or brutal the crime. On Aug. 4, he filed a federal lawsuit challenging the president’s authority, a suit that one prominent legal scholar described as simply “delusional.”

In his complaint, Schwalb claims that “the deployment of National Guard troops to police District streets without the District’s consent infringes on its sovereignty and right to self-governance.” Yet Washington has never had either sovereignty or any right to self-governance. That’s not only a historical fact — it’s how the founders designed it.

In 1783, five years before the Constitution was ratified, the Confederation Congress met in the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia. Hundreds of Revolutionary War soldiers surrounded the building, threatening lawmakers and demanding back pay. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the City of Philadelphia ignored Congress’ plea for military or police assistance, forcing a move to New Jersey.

Three months later, Congress endorsed the idea of locating the national legislature in a “suitable district” over which the federal government would have jurisdiction. Based on bitter experience, it wanted to avoid the inevitable problems that would come from locating the capital within one of the states.

When they returned to Philadelphia in 1787 to draft a new Constitution, the framers spent no time debating a provision giving Congress authority to create and control a federal district from land ceded by states to serve as the seat of the U.S. government. The Constitution explicitly gives Congress authority to “exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever” over the district.

They wanted to make certain that no one later would think the district had its own inherent sovereignty or a right to self-government that could be used to threaten, coerce, intimidate, or manipulate members of Congress.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that this federal control over the district is so complete that Congress can even treat it as a state for specific purposes, such as taxation or diversity jurisdiction. It can even extend to the district restrictions the Constitution imposes on states.

The district has been governed in several ways, including an elected city council and presidentially appointed mayor; a two-chamber legislature, one appointed by the president and the other elected; a three-member commission appointed by the president; and, since 1973, an elected mayor and city council.

Yet each time, Congress dictated how the district would be organized and governed. The Home Rule Act in place today expressly states that Congress “reserves the right, at any time, to exercise its constitutional authority as legislature for the District.”

The feds have stepped in before when the district was poorly governed. A deepening financial crisis due to reckless spending led Congress in 1995 to create the District of Columbia Financial Control Board, which directly ran the district’s finances for the next six years. The board balanced the district’s budget and then phased out its control, but now Washington once again faces a $1.1 billion deficit in the current fiscal year.

Far from having, as Schwalb contends, any “right to self-governance,” the district may govern itself at all only because Congress allows it — and may do so only in ways, and to the extent, that Congress permits. And, frankly, the district has often made a hash of it when Congress has given it any leeway.

Which brings us back to Trump’s decision to have the National Guard help the district in perhaps the most basic responsibility of government: public safety. In 2023, our colleagues Charles Stimson and Zack Smith exposed the district’s failure at criminal justice reform, and Smith has recently explained why its claim that crime today is under control is fiction.

Unlike states where the National Guard is under the governor’s legal authority, in the district the National Guard is under the president. This has been codified in federal law since 1889.

But the D.C. Code, as the attorney general surely knows, also codifies this federal requirement in § 49-409, which states: “The President of the United States shall be the Commander-in-Chief of the militia of the District of Columbia.” “Militia” is the 1889 term for the National Guard.

What does this mean? It means that Brian Schwalb’s bogus lawsuit is a political stunt. But while his lawsuit has no merit, Trump’s concern over Washington’s high crime rate and his legal authority to address it certainly do. It’s about time.

Republished from The Daily Signal.