Sen Mike Lee Renews pushes to federalize DC with Bowser Act after the attack

A Senate republican has renewed his efforts to unite Washington, DC, following an attack on a former employee of the Government Ministry (DOGE) and the threat of President Donald Trump to put the district under federal control.

Senator Mike Lee, Rutah, has long called the Washington control to die for at Congress, going so far as to present the monitoring of Washington and security to each resident law (Bowser), named after the mayor of DC Muriel Bowser, with the aim of fighting crime in the district.

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President Donald Trump speaks to the media when he arrives at Glasgow Prestwick airport on July 25, 2025 in Prestwick, Scotland. (Images Andrew Harnik / Getty)

The bill, which Lee introduced alongside the representative Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., Has not been out of the committee since its abandonment in February. But Trump’s highest point of an attack on the former DOGE staff member, Edward Coristine, also known as “Big Balls”, resurrected the discussion.

“The Constitution already federalizes DC,” said Lee on X. “We just need the Congress to do his job – and reaffirm his power to carry out the capital of our country. My bill, the Bowser law, would do it.”

Fox News Digital contacted Lee for additional comments.

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Senator Mike Lee, Rutah., Elections come from the management of the Senate Republicans in Capitol on November 13, 2024. (Bill Clark / CQ-Roll Call, included via Getty Images)

Lee’s bill effectively repealed the Columbia district rule law, a law adopted in the 1970s which created a municipal council and a mayor and reduced the surveillance that Congress has on the city and its affairs.

But calls have increased by legislators over the years to increase the surveillance of the Congress on the City, have largely focused on concerns about increased crime and criticism of attempts to rewrite the district penal code.

And Trump also jumped into the threatening speech that if “DC does not come together, and quickly, we will have no choice but to take federal control of the city”.

“Perhaps it should have been done a long time ago, so this incredible young man, and so many others, should not have gone through the horrors of violent crime,” Trump said on his social media platform, Truth Social. “If that continues, I will exercise my powers and federalize this city.”

Fox News contacted Bowser’s office to comment but did not immediately hear.

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The mayor of DC, Muriel Bowser, speaks during a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 10, 2025. (AP photo / ben Curtis)

Zack Smith, principal legal researcher at Heritage Foundation and former prosecutor, told Fox News Digital than in the past, the DC council had extended “policies that have made much more difficult for the police, for prosecutors, to do their work and protect citizens”.

Bowser and the DC council have, for several years, worked to update the district penal code. However, the modifications of the code which would have seriously lowered the conviction for a variety of crimes which were first opposed to the veto by Bowser were about to become law before the Congress and former President Joe Biden exceeds the reforms.

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Smith noted that Congress still has the power to legislate in the district, which means that the legislators and the federal government are “always the safety net” and that Trump and Lee were right to request a “re -evaluation of the status of the district”.

“This is why Congress was able to intervene and overthrow who proposed a radical rewriting of the Criminal Code,” he said. “And therefore what the Bowser law would really do, if it repeals the regulations of the house, this would essentially change the functioning of the local DC government. This could involve the congress and the federal government playing a more direct role.”

“I think there is a large bipartite consensus and in some ways that the current DC system does not work as it should,” he continued.