When Harry McPherson Jr. passed away last week, the District lost a titan in the early fight for home rule. It was McPherson, along with other top aides for President Lyndon Baines Johnson, who first understood the fundamental injustice of the capital city’s lack of democracy and moved to reform it.
McPherson was 36 when he was LBJ’s principal White House counsel in 1965. He moved on to have a vibrant career as a lawyer and lobbyist in D.C., and he was vital almost until the day he died at 82. His passing gives us the chance to ask: How has D.C. fared with ensuing White Houses since McPherson and a band of LBJ aides helped the city take the first steps to self-rule?
Johnson and McPherson were Texans who came to the capital when “Southern liberals” were not afraid to wear the designation with pride. For Johnson, who pushed through the most far-reaching civil rights laws in the nation’s history, the fact that a half-million residents of the city around the White House could not vote was an affront.
In 1965, LBJ directed some of his top staffers to push through a law to bestow self-determination on D.C. Among them were McPherson, Joe Califano and Charles Horsky, the staffer LBJ designated to work on D.C. matters. The Board of Trade and Southern conservatives killed it. Then in 1967 LBJ, backed by McPherson, replaced the three commissioners who had been running D.C. with a city council of locals led by John Hechinger. That step to local control paved the way for elected government under the 1974 Home Rule Charter.
LBJ and his aides loved Washington, D.C., before the age when running against Washington became a staple, even for creatures created in the capital, such as Newt Gingrich.
Ironically, it was Republican President Richard Nixon, a tough conservative who also loved Washington, who signed the Home Rule Charter. Since then, presidents and their aides have had spotty contact with D.C. Jimmy Carter never found his way in the White House or the city around it. Ronald Reagan demonized the District. George H.W. Bush (41) was more Washingtonian than Texan, but he dissed the District, too. Bill Clinton engaged D.C., especially through his budget aide, Franklin Raines. “W” scoffed at D.C., though he tapped top aide Josh Bolton to be a liaison, with positive results for the city.
Barack Obama is no Nixon when it comes to his dealings with D.C. The first black resident of the White House has not advanced the District’s agenda. In fact, he has done it damage. He’s kept federal funds flowing for major federal projects, thanks in part to lobbying by Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, but he has shied away from any mention of statehood, nor has he lobbied for a vote in the House, for fear of being accused of actually favoring Washington, D.C.
Obama might have assigned an aide to make dinner reservations for him and the first lady in D.C., but that person is no Harry McPherson.
Harry Jaffe’s column appears on Tuesday and Friday. He can be contacted at [email protected].
