For about as long as we can remember, the District has been run by Congress. Sure, we were granted Home Rule in 1973, but even that move forward came with a glaring caveat — Congress can always overrule what local officials want to do or just force them to do things they wouldn’t otherwise want to.

The last few years have been relatively good, though, as Democrats have pushed measures to increase local legislative and budgetary autonomy and remove a number of noxious prohibitions on local policy initiatives like medical marijuana and needle-exchange programs. But the good times may come to an inglorious end, should Republicans take back the House come November.

This week, Dave Weigel profiles Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) for the City Paper, assessing what the young Republican’s reign over the Federal Workforce, Postal Service, and the District of Columbia Subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee would mean for the District. (Without a Republican Senate and president, thankfully, it may just be noise.)

We’ve excerpted some of the tastiest morsels of what Chaffetz has to say about our fair city and his presumptive lordship over it.