Voteless D.C. will not have a friend in Maryland when the much-anticipated bill to give the city control of the decrepit, federally owned RFK Stadium site goes up for a vote in the U.S. House this week.
Five of the eight Maryland House members say they intend to vote against the D.C. Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium Campus Revitalization Act, which would allow the District to redevelop the federally owned site for a number of purposes outlined in the bill, including a new stadium. D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) has long been depending on the bill’s passage to kick-start more serious talks with Commanders owner Josh Harris and to fulfill her plan to lure the Commanders back to their former D.C. home.
If the bill were to fail, that door might close. Just how mighty the small Maryland voting bloc may be is an open question, though — one that isn’t worrying the bipartisan leaders of the bill, who believe it will pass with or without the Maryland opposition faction.
The bill, led by House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), will go up for a vote as soon as Wednesday under suspension of the rules and will need two-thirds support for passage. Austin Hacker, a House Oversight spokesman for Comer, who has championed the bill as a way to spur economic development at the neglected riverfront plot, expressed confidence in the legislation and said it had garnered “growing momentum” in Congress among bipartisan lawmakers. Bills that go up for a vote under suspension of the rules are typically seen by House leadership as likely to sail through in noncontroversial votes.
That may be true for many House reps with no dog in the fight — but at least among Marylanders, not so.
“I’m going to oppose the RFK bill for a couple of reasons,” said Rep. Glenn Ivey (D), whose Prince George’s County district includes FedEx Field. “The main one is that we want to make sure Maryland has a level playing field to compete [for] the Commanders.”
The second reason: He called it a bad deal for the federal government to transfer administrative control of federal land to D.C. — for a term of 99 years without rent costs — “for private ownership to build a football stadium.”
The regional competition to build the future home of the Commanders has been among the feistiest local political dramas in recent years, perhaps behind only the battle over the future home of the FBI, which is slated to go to Maryland over Virginia’s protests.
Harris has talked with Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D), Bowser and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) about the potential for a new stadium since taking over the team last year. Virginia, however, has of late been a bit more fixated on a tentative plan to bring the Washington Wizards and Capitals from downtown D.C. to Potomac Yard in Alexandria after Youngkin struck a handshake deal with the teams’ billionaire owner, Ted Leonsis, in December.
The teams’ prospective departure was seen as a stunning loss for Bowser, who was hamstrung in negotiations with Leonsis because of a strict debt cap that prevented D.C. from offering funds to revitalize Capital One Arena earlier. On the flip side, revitalizing RFK with a mixed-use development anchored by a Commanders stadium would be a legacy agenda item for the mayor.
The potential for RFK to become the football team’s new home is far from guaranteed, even if the bill passes. The decision would depend on Harris, and the vision has already faced some opposition in the neighborhood and on the D.C. Council.
But Bowser has often noted that the first step to turning RFK into any attractive development, stadium or not, is the legislation. “We’ve worked very hard for the past 10 years to get control of RFK, and this is where we are,” the mayor said. “The District needs control of the land, and we need to have it in a long-term situation so we can make investments in it. … It’s over 100 acres, and right now, it’s blighted.”
Ivey said he realized that the legislation would allow for multiple uses beyond a stadium, but: “Let’s not kid ourselves: This bill is moving forward because it’s all about the football stadium.”
Rep. David Trone (D), a top contender in Maryland’s U.S. Senate race, said he was a “hard no,” echoing Ivey’s argument that it was a bad deal for federal taxpayers. But also: “We certainly support keeping the Commanders in Maryland, where the governor has just committed roughly $400 million to revitalizing that area via the Blue Line corridor project. So we also want to protect Maryland dollars.”
Spokeswomen for Democratic Reps. John Sarbanes and C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, both of whom will be retiring at the end of their terms next year, said they will be voting no as well. “We’d like to keep the stadium in Maryland,” added Jaime Lennon, a spokeswoman for Ruppersberger.
Notably, a spokesman for Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D) said in an email that he will also be voting no — even though, like Rep. Jamie Raskin (D), Mfume voted in support of the bill last year when it advanced from the House Oversight Committee. Mfume’s spokesman, Ryan Lawrence, didn’t respond to a question about why Mfume had changed his position.
Raskin’s position on this vote, however, is unclear. In a statement submitted with the Oversight Committee report, Raskin, the top Democrat on the committee, cast aspersions on the bill and suggested that his support is conditional without clearly articulating that.
“I hope that this legislation goes through with the provision that taxpayer dollars should not be used for the construction of a football stadium on public land for the use and profit of a private franchise,” he wrote.
While there is a provision in the bill prohibiting the use of federal funds for financing a stadium, Raskin also wants local taxpayer funds prohibited — a bar he unsuccessfully tried to add to the bill last year.
During a September Oversight Committee hearing, the longtime supporter of D.C. statehood emerged in the unexpected position of arguing to restrict how D.C. could redevelop the land — something Comer, who has led efforts to block local D.C. bills, strongly opposed. Raskin pushed an amendment by Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) that would have blocked the use of federal or local taxpayer dollars to build a sports stadium at the site, an amendment that Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) argued infringed on D.C.’s autonomy and that Comer said went against the spirit of the legislation to allow D.C. to choose how to develop the site. The amendment failed 24-13, with handfuls of Republicans and Democrats voting in support; the bill ultimately advanced 31-9.
In a text to The Washington Post on Tuesday, Raskin said: “I voted for the legislation with the express hope it would be amended to make clear that no further taxpayer dollars could be used to build a football stadium for private use. Although I love football and am a Commanders fan, I have regarded this kind of taxpayer financing for the benefit of private sports franchises as a corporate shakedown of the taxpayers which pits neighboring jurisdictions against each other.”
He said he hoped the Senate would add provisions prohibiting taxpayer financing of a possible stadium at RFK but did not clarify how he will vote on the bill.
D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), the lead co-sponsor of the bill, said she interpreted his statement in the committee report as opposition and was “surprised.”
“I guess they want the stadium, too,” she said of Marylanders.
Still, she said she was confident the legislation would pass. “It’s an unused, wasted tract of land. It will benefit everybody to be fully used,” she said.
Reps. Steny H. Hoyer (D) and Andy Harris (R) did not respond to requests about how they will vote on the legislation. Moore declined to comment through a spokesman.
Should the bill pass the House, it would head over to the Senate, where D.C. bills rarely get stand-alone attention. Sometimes uncontroversial bills can go up for a vote under unanimous consent — though unanimity doesn’t seem likely because of a certain pair of Marylanders over there, too. Both senators, in a statement or through a spokeswoman, said they want the Commanders to stay in Maryland.
“I support their continued presence here — as well as ensuring a fair process in the selection of a site — and appreciate the efforts of the Governor and others working to make that happen,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D) said in a statement.
Sam Fortier contributed to this report.
