WASHINGTON – A U.S. district court lawsuit challenging the legality of the District of Columbia's Local Budget Autonomy Act of 2013 and D.C.'s push for budget autonomy was reassigned to a new judge last month.
Judicial Watch, a political watchdog group based in Washington, sued D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and chief financial officer Jeffrey DeWitt in November on behalf of Clarice Feldman, a D.C. taxpayer, to prevent them "from expending taxpayer money from a budget that has not been appropriated by Congress and presented to the president for signing."
The group argued that the district's Local Budget Autonomy Act violates federal law by attempting to remove appropriation authority form lawmakers and instead grant it to D.C.. Should Judicial Watch obtain a favorable ruling, D.C.'s push for budget autonomy could be stopped in its tracks.
The case was returned by District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan on July 14 to the calendar committee, and reassigned to D.C. District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. On July 21, Jackson ordered the parties re-file their briefs with tables of contents and tables of authorities on or before Sept. 4.
"That's where we stand," said Andrew Phifer, a spokesman for the D.C. attorney general's office.
In February, DeWitt filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning the plaintiff cannot file another case on the same claim. Counsel for DeWitt also includes: D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine; Elizabeth Gere, D.C. deputy attorney general for the public interest division; and Toni Michelle Jackson, the equity section chief in the D.C. attorney general's office. David Umansky, a spokesman for DeWitt's office, had no comment.
The suit alleges that the Local Budget Autonomy Act violates a section of D.C.'s Home Rule Act that states no budget funds can be expended by D.C. government unless the amount has been approved by an act of Congress.
DeWitt has argued that Feldman does not have standing to sue because she has no "particularized" injury as a result of the act.
"Plaintiff has claimed no actual injury personalized to her, merely one generalized to all District taxpayers," the defendants wrote in their motion to dismiss the suit.
The U.S. House of Representative's Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the court to deny DeWitt's motion on March 31. In it, the legal group called the Local Budget Act a "naked and unabashed effort to strip Congress of powers vested in it by Article I of the Constitution" and said the only way for the district to achieve budget autonomy would be through Congressional legislation.
The push for budget autonomy has largely been supported by Democrats, while Republicans have opposed any such move.
The Clarifying Congressional Intent in Providing for DC Home Rule Act of 2016 (H.R. 5233), which passed the House in May, would repeal the district's Local Budget Autonomy Act of 2012 and amend its Home Rule Act of 1973 to clarify that district funds are subject to congressional approval. That bill, introduced by Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's government operations panel, has been referred to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
President Obama has threatened to veto any such legislation, while Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the district's non-voting delegate, has argued that budget autonomy would improve D.C.'s borrowing costs and eliminate the possibility of government shutdowns.
Bowser, a Democrat, submitted D.C.'s enacted $13.4 billion fiscal budget to Congress and President Obama in June, despite Meadows' proposed legislation. Under budget autonomy, the district would only submit its budget to Congress for a 30-day passive review before it becomes law.
A D.C. Superior Court judge ruling in March permits the district to only ask Congress for appropriations for federal funds, roughly 10% of its budget. The ruling also declared D.C's Local Budget Autonomy Act of 2012 lawful under district law, which removes Congress and the president from having to sign off on the appropriation of D.C.'s own funds, roughly 90% of its budget.
