D.C. Rule

Last session, for the umpteenth time, a bill granting home rule to the District of Columbia failed to reach a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives. President Johnson has now decided to try a new approach. He proposes to reshuffle the present organization of the District into a proto-mayor-council government, using his authority under the Reorganization Act of 1945.

This strategy, first suggested by the Washington chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, has a certain appeal. Any other measure affecting the D.C. government would require specific Congressional approval; this one requires specific disapproval. A reorganization measure goes into effect automatically 60 days after its submission unless Congress has voted no in the meantime. The mechanism by which Congress vetoes a reorganization measure is either 1) a committee, in response to a motion of disapproval filed by a member of the House, sends a report to the floor within ten days to be voted upon, or 2) if the committee does not send a report to the floor, an opponent of the measure can try to have it brought to a vote without a committee report. There can be no amendments; the majority either accepts the plan or rejects it.

This procedure gives the Administration an advantage which it normally does not have in its dealings with Congress on the District. For once, Congressional inertia will be its ally rather than its antagonist. In light of past Congressional-D.C. relations, inertia can be a powerful ally.

The proposed reorganization would replace the present three-man Board of Commissioners with a single Commissioner and a nine-member Council. According to the President, the Commissioner would take over the executive functions of the Board--"responsibility and authority to organize and manage the D.C. government, to administer its programs and to prepare its budget of revenues and expenses." The Council would take up the quasilegislative functions of the present Board--reviewing the budget, issuing licensing rules and police regulations, and establishing rates for property taxation.

The Commissioner would be a $28-000-a-year Presidential appointee, whose term would last as long as the President saw fit. The President would appoint the Council, on a ward basis, for overlapping two-year terms. Their position would be only part-time, and the chairman would be appointed by the President, not elected by the Council. All top officials would have to be city residents.

The President's plan also includes providing the District with "an ample quota' 'of supergrade executive positions. The independent agencies which now form part of the D.C. government, such as the National Capital Planning Commission, would not be affected by the reorganization.

Along with his reorganization plan, Johnson has promised to send to Congress two proposals for legislation: first, a Constitutional amendment giving the District a voting delegate to the House and "such additional representatives in the House and Senate as Congress may from time to time provide"; second, while the amendment is being considered, Congressional approval for a non-voting delegate to the House.

administrative authority in a single Commissioner." The D.C. government does need to be rationalized. But the trouble with Johnson's plans is that the District administrators will have the same limitations as they did before. Any disgruntled agency--the Metropolitan Police, for example--can still run to Capitol Hill with its complaints. And the Metropolitan Washington Board of Trade will no doubt continue to be the city's unofficial government through its relationships, above and below board, with members of the House District Committee.

Strictly from the viewpoint of streamlining the D.C. government, the plan could be neither bad nor good. It is hard to conceive of a change that would make the situation worse than it already is, but the President's package could prove harmful to the ultimate goal of local self-government.

The initial reflex of the habitual home-rule opponents when Johnson revealed his plan was one of opposition. The president of the anti-Negro Federation of Citizen's Association sputtered, "We regard this entire program as a subterfuge to try to slip through Congress the home-rule proposal which it turned down last year."

A more significant reply was that of the president of the Board of Trade (also anti-home rule), who praised the provisions for representation in Congress and said that the rest of the plan was under study. After home-rule opponents consider the plan carefully, they will undoubtedly realize its potential for completely derailing the home-rule movement. The Board of Trade has always favored D.C. representation in Congress because it has dealt satisfactorily with favorite Congressmen.

If the Johnson package is accepted, the Board of Trade will have all that it has ever wanted in the way of D.C. enfranchisement. There will no doubt be a sizeable number of Negroes on the proposed Council, and maybe even a Negro Commissioner. This biracial composition of the appointed government, together with a biennial Congressional election, can be used to show the House that D.C. citizens already play an active part in city affairs and that no further' self-government is needed.

The Democratic Central Committee and the Washington Home Rule Committee have already endorsed the plan as a "step toward home rule." This conclusion is perhaps an effect of the predominantly legalistic thrust of the home-rule movement to date. It has not sought political organization among D.C. citizens. Those who speak for the home-rule movement, therefore, do not occupy a vantage point from which they could see the incongruity of a "step toward home rule" which continues and extends the preeminence of Federal politics in District government. The top city officials under the new plan, Presidentially appointed and Senate-confirmed, can scarcely form the basis of true local political maturity.