Bowser’s Quotes on Home Rule
By • September 10, 2025 0 155
Staying the course and answering her critics, Mayor Muriel Bowser has said: “Our North Star is protecting Home Rule and D.C.’s autonomy. D.C. residents, we are going to continue to make the right decisions — the tough decisions — and we are going to get to the other side of this.”
The mayor’s order Bowser issued on Sept. 2, “Creation of the Safe and Beautiful Emergency Operations Center,” reads, in part: “There is established the Safe and Beautiful Emergency Operations Center (‘SBEOC’) to manage the District’s response to the Task Force, the Presidential declaration of emergency and on a continuing basis. The SBEOC will coordinate centralized communications; formulate post-emergency planning; formulate post-emergency operations and ensure coordination with federal law enforcement to the maximum extent, allowable by law within the District. Emergency planning will include coordination of any continued enhanced federal law enforcement efforts and shared resources with the United States Marshals Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, United States Park Police, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the United States Capitol Police and the United States Secret Service.”
She defended her approach at a press conference the following day.
“I want the message to be clear to Congress: We don’t need a presidential emergency. People who are like me outraged over the intrusion on our federal autonomy, people who like me … who see protecting Home Rule and our autonomy as our North Star.”
Bowser continued: “I have to say that there was a Washington Post headline that circulated that was simply false. I went back and reread that order and then hundreds of words that were in that order. There was no mention of welcome or welcoming. So that headline was false, and sadly I think it was intentionally misleading. Let me tell you without equivocation that the mayor’s order does not extend the Trump emergency. In fact, it does the exact opposite.
“[Residents are] concerned about a lot of things, but they’re concerned that MPD has been compelled to participate with ICE. This is … a requirement of the Home Rule charter when the president requests MPD services for a federal purpose in an emergency, okay. We got to get out of the emergency.”
Same as it ever was — that’s one way to get out of the emergency that ends today.
