WASHINGTON—In response to the Senate passing the "District of Columbia Local Funds Act of 2025” on March 14, 2025, Monica Hopkins, Executive Director of the ACLU of the District of Columbia said:
“We urge the House of Representatives to immediately vote to pass the ‘District of Columbia Local Funds Act of 2025,’ which would restore one billion dollars in local spending authority in the District.
There is no reason to abruptly and senselessly shut down D.C. These harmful cuts would freeze the District’s own local tax dollars and funds and would not save the federal government money. What sense does it make to suddenly lay off our kids’ teachers and to defund the Metro system that people—including Congressional staffers—rely on to get to work?
Without swift action on the ‘District of Columbia Local Funds Act of 2025,’ the continuing resolution passed by the House and Senate would force the District to deal with one billion dollars in budget cuts that are completely avoidable. The District’s balanced budget is already paid for, mostly by local tax-dollars.
It is deeply counterproductive and inefficient for Congress to set an unnecessary limit on D.C.’s own local budget — a budget that Congress itself already approved. It is also a massive departure from how Congress has handled D.C.’s budget for the past two decades. Since the 2013 federal shutdown, Congress has exempted DC from shutdowns because Congress recognized that shutting down the District was harmful to operations of both D.C. and the federal government.
It is in no one’s interest to limit D.C.’s local spending based on an already-approved budget. It is not in the interest of residents, or visitors, or voters, or even members of Congress who will have to deal with the fallout of these disastrous and unnecessary cuts.
No one elected their Representative to micromanage how the District spends its own tax dollars. And certainly no one elected their members of Congress to slash D.C.’s budget in a way that will have widespread, damaging, and completely avoidable effects.”
