Jubilation melted into frustration this week for D.C. officials and many local football fans as a proposal that might have brought the Washington Cammanders back to a new RFK Stadium went from a sure-thing chipshot extra point to a near-impossible Hail Mary from the shadow of their own goalposts.
The proposal was included in the continuing resolution bill presented by federal lawmakers on Tuesday night, but concerns about government spending from President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the future lead of the new Department of Government Efficiency, tanked the legislation.
“This should not be funded by your tax dollars,” Musk wrote on X in response to a post that falsely claimed the legislation would have allotted $3 billion for an NFL stadium in Washington.
The RFK lease-back idea was nowhere to be found in a new, slimmed-down spending bill proposal that emerged Thursday afternoon.
The future of the RFK Stadium campus is now in jeopardy — a huge setback for D.C. officials who have spent years lobbying for local control of the site.
“It’s very frustrating. … All wrong,” D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said Thursday in response to Mr. Musk. “There are no federal dollars related to the transfer of RFK, and in fact the legislation does not require or link at all to a stadium. We’re talking about how the District can invest in removing blight.”
The original rejected continuing resolution authorized a 99-year lease for the city to use the site for recreation, retail and housing.
The flashiest option for the site was a new stadium to lure the Washington Commanders back to D.C. The franchise left to play its home games in nearby Landover, Maryland, in 1996.
The District currently leases the site but is restricted in its uses as the old RFK Stadium, surrounded by acres of empty parking lots, rusts. The legislation would have granted city officials administrative control of the site.
“It’s important because in order for our taxpayers to be able to invest in that land, infrastructure, tearing down the stadium, remediation and multiple development options, we have to be able to finance it,” Ms. Bowser said. “Fourteen years is not long enough to finance it.”
The legislation expressly prohibited federal funds from being used for “stadium purposes on the Campus, including training facilities, offices, and other structures necessary to support the stadium.”
The Commanders, who have publicly supported D.C.’s quest to gain control of the land, declined to comment on the week’s news.
But the widespread frustration over Musk’s claims spread from lawmakers to sports fans on Thursday morning.
J.P. Finlay, a longtime local media personality who has supported a new stadium in D.C., railed against “carpetbagging jerks” who blocked the legislation on his radio show.
“Because of the city we live in and the carpetbagging jerks who come in here and claim that it’s a swamp, even though millions of us live here and it’s just home, they insist on messing things up,” Mr. Finlay said on 106.7 “The Fan.” “They just insist upon it.”
His tone starkly contrasted the celebratory mood he crafted on Wednesday when the legislation looked like a shoo-in. Sure, there would be a fight over funding, he said, but at least the District would control the site.
“This thing looks to be on life support or already dead,” Mr. Finlay said. “The little bit of a high we got when it seemed like this was going to happen to what it is now, it’s just become another political football for whoever wants to grandstand or get their face on cable news.”
Many opponents of a stadium, like Kingman Park resident Ebony Payne, had their mixed feelings about the proposal turn sour this week.
“It is very important that the city has control of the land, but there’s a lot of trepidation,” Ms. Payne, an advisory neighborhood commissioner for the area around RFK Stadium, said Wednesday afternoon.
But when Mr. Trump urged Republican leaders to kill the legislation, her skepticism took over.
“It’s a battle of the billionaires that the community is at the mercy of,” she said Thursday, referring to Commanders owner Josh Harris, Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk.
Councilman George Allen, who represents Ward 6, shared that sentiment.
“Whether or not you support an NFL stadium there, District leaders across the board are all on the same page: it needs to be in the [continuing resolution],” Mr. Allen told ABC 7. “We need to have full control of that site.”
Federal lawmakers have until 11:59 p.m. on Friday to pass a new continuing resolution to fund the government. It’s unclear if any new legislation would include the RFK Stadium provision.
If the city can’t gain control of the site now, Ms. Bowser said she isn’t sure when or how it would happen.
“I don’t know if there’s another path this session. And the other point I want to make is this: This has not been a last-minute, behind-the-scenes discussion. …” she said. “This was identified as the vehicle to get the measure to the full Senate.”
For someone who has spent years trying to bring the Commanders back to the District, the thought of starting from scratch is daunting.
“We don’t want to start all over. We’ve done all we’re supposed to do, and this is the vehicle that has been identified — and agreed to — by Democrats and Republicans. … ” she said. “We want to make our nation’s capital the most beautiful capital in the world, so we have to move and free RFK.”
