D.C. is not bound to gain control of its National Guard for the foreseeable future after a provision that would have made it happen was scuttled in Congress, a major blow for advocates who saw autonomy over the District’s own military unit as a step toward D.C. statehood.

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       A provision to transfer control of the D.C. National Guard from the president to the mayor of the District had passed the House for the first time this fall as part of Congress’s major defense spending bill, the National Defense Authorization Act. But the D.C. provision — known as the D.C. National Guard Home Rule Act — was not included in the final text of the NDAA released on Tuesday after joint House and Senate negotiations, likely signaling the end of the road for the home rule legislation — at least in this Congress.

       D.C. officials and Democrats in the Washington-area delegation in Congress had been hopeful that this year presented the best chance of giving D.C. control of its Guard, which has long been a priority of Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), the District’s nonvoting House delegate.

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       On Thursday, Norton and allies who backed the D.C. Guard legislation pointed to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol and the violent crackdown by federal police — bolstered by the D.C. Guard — on peaceful protesters at Lafayette Square in 2020 as two events providing an impetus for D.C. to seek autonomy over its local militia with renewed urgency.

       “We are disappointed that the final NDAA does not give the D.C. mayor appropriate powers to address the response failures of two violent incidents in the nation’s capital,” said the statement, also signed by Democrats including Sens. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), Thomas R. Carper (Del.) and Reps. Anthony G. Brown (Md.) and Carolyn B. Maloney (N.Y.).

       Over the course of the year, D.C. officials frequently argued that major delays by the federal government to call the D.C. Guard on Jan. 6 hindered police officers’ safety that day. The Pentagon did not deploy the D.C. National Guard to the riot at the Capitol for several hours, long after it had already turned violent.

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       Still, the likelihood of D.C. gaining control of its National Guard with this Congress was already slim, given strong opposition from Republicans.

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       Van Hollen, sponsor of the Senate version of the D.C. Home Rule Act, said in an interview that during negotiations Republicans pointed to the D.C. provision as among the items that they would resist so strongly as to threaten torpedoing the entire NDAA if Democrats included it.

       “When you’ve got Republicans taking the position that they’ll oppose the entire NDAA bill rather than support this provision, the decision was made that we need to pass the bill that funds our national security, national defense,” Van Hollen said. “We’ll come back and fight this another day.”