The District of Columbia is proudly the home to more than 700,000 Americans. Let’s not dance around what this is about. This is not about the rare tent in a park or graffiti on an overpass. These are just familiar distractions and something you can find in every state in our country. What’s different is that people who call DC home don’t have members of Congress, are more vulnerable to Congressional overreach, and are thus made an easy target.

The baseless attacks on District residents and local government are an attack on democracy itself. The principle of democratic representation is foundational to our country, and a threat to remove an elected government in our United States is an affront to the very idea of America. Elected District leaders have worked constructively with administrations of both parties over the last half-century. If the federal government wants to improve public safety, it has a role to play right now: nominate and approve judges for our Courts, remove federal riders that block common-sense regulations on cannabis sales that would make us safer, and fully fund the federal share of responsibilities for public safety that the District shoulders alone.

If the unwinding of democracy begins here, it won’t end here. We need our allies in Congress, common-sense leaders of all political parties who value democracy, and residents from across the country to take a stand.