There is no escaping this reality: The midterm elections are months away and even if the Democrats win the U.S. House of Representatives, as many predict, they won’t take control until January 2027. During the interim period, District elected officials will undoubtedly continue to experience political bruising and governance crises, heightening the anxiety of DC residents who have increasingly had to rely on the juggling, dancing and strategic maneuvers of Mayor Muriel Bowser and the DC Council to protect them from a hostile national Republican Party and its Mad Hatter leader.

That fact was on full display Tuesday during a breakfast meeting prior to the council’s legislative session. Members discussed two controversial public safety proposals: the Body-Worn Camera Transparency for Use of Force Emergency Amendment Act of 2026, introduced by Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto, and the Full Accountability in Arrest Reporting Emergency Amendment Act of 2026, introduced by at-large Councilmember Robert White.

Those bills, as written, may direct and mandate certain actions by the city’s Metropolitan Police Department when there has been a death or serious use of force. However, local lawmakers’ aim was essentially to rein in federal law enforcement officers, particularly those with Immigration and Customs Enforcement within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. ICE agents, along with the National Guard, have been in District neighborhoods since August when President Donald Trump declared a DC crime emergency as subterfuge for his massive deportation pogrom against undocumented residents and people of color, even American citizens.

After the council’s public safety discussion, members went into a private, closed-door session to consider their next step in the fight over the congressional disapproval resolution, viewed by some as a repeal, of the city’s DC Income and Franchise Tax Conformity and Revision Temporary Amendment Act of 2025. That law, passed initially on an emergency basis, decoupled the city’s local tax code from sections of the federal One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) — one of Trump’s signature funding bills.

DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb recently released a legal opinion asserting that, among other things, the Senate had missed the deadline for such action. He argued that, therefore, the law had not been repealed. Still, DC Chief Financial Officer Glen Lee did not include anticipated revenues from the tax decoupling in his February revenue estimate.

Unable to reach agreement among themselves, legislators left their private huddle without a forward-facing plan.

On Wednesday, Lee sent a letter to Bowser and DC Council Chair Phil Mendelson regarding the decoupling matter, including his decision not to include decoupling revenue in his fiscal calculations. He accepted the AG’s conclusion that “the tax liabilities created by the emergency law survive its expiration on March 3, 2026.”