Norton Releases Prepared Remarks for Press Conference with Mayor Bowser Urging the House to Restore D.C.’s Delegate Vote
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) released her statement ahead of a press conference today with District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser and D.C. Office of Veterans Affairs Director Ely S. Ross calling on Congress to restore the D.C.'s delegate vote on the House floor in the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union. The Committee of the Whole vote would allow the delegate representing the District to vote on amendments on the House floor. The House rules have permitted Norton to vote in three Congresses: the 103rd, 110th, and 111th.
"Budget autonomy and statehood are for another day," Norton said. "Today we claim the minimum of what has been bought and paid for in lives given in all the nation's wars and in taxes paid to support the government of the United States. It is time that our country returned the favor to at least give the American citizens who live in the District of Columbia the dignity of a vote in the Committee of the Whole they have earned."
Norton's full remarks, as prepared for delivery, follow.
REMARKS FOR D.C. DELEGATE VOTE PRESS CONFERENCE
Tuesday, January 3, 2017
As the District of Columbia's first action in the 115th Congress, we come united to claim the right to vote on the House floor in the Committee of the Whole due our residents as American citizens. I especially welcome Mayor Muriel Bowser and thank her for joining us today. It was two years ago that Mayor Bowser joined me for this press conference for her first public appearance in Congress, and I am delighted she has come again to present our city's determination to claim rights we already have earned. I also want to give special recognition to our third speaker, Ely S. Ross, Director of the Mayor's Office of Veterans Affairs, and to welcome and thank him for his service to our country and for joining us today.
Together, we ask Speaker Paul Ryan for House rules for the 115th Congress that permit the District of Columbia delegate again to vote in the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, as upheld as constitutional by two federal courts. This vote is a down payment for full voting rights to the more than 680,000 American citizens residing in the District of Columbia, who pay the highest federal income taxes per capita in the United States and have fought and died in every American war, yet have no vote on the floor of the House of Representatives, "the people's house."
The legitimacy of the D.C. delegate vote cannot be avoided. D.C. has voted in the Committee of the Whole in three prior Congresses. Nothing is more un-American than pulling a vote citizens have earned, something virtually unheard of in this country. When I first came to Congress in 1991, I submitted a legal memorandum to Speaker Tom Foley requesting that the House rules permit the D.C. delegate to vote in the Committee of the Whole. I argued that since House rules had long permitted the District to vote in standing committees, the same House rules should permit the District's vote in the Committee of the Whole, established on the House floor by House rules as well. The House in its discretion granted the District its first vote on the House floor.
House Republicans sued the House for granting the District the vote in the Committee of the Whole in the 103rd Congress. Both the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that the delegate vote is constitutional under Article I of the U.S. Constitution. In Michel v. Anderson, the U.S. Court of Appeals noted that the longstanding practice of the House is to allow delegates to vote in standing committees and found that the Committee of the Whole vote was not constitutionally distinct from that practice.
After voting in the 103rd Congress, the District was again able to vote in the Committee of the Whole during the 110th and 111th Congresses. During those Congresses, the delegate vote had no adverse impact on the operations of the House. However, the vote's importance to the taxpaying American citizens who live in the District of Columbia cannot be overstated.
Although we have made some gains in our quest to make D.C. more equal with the states, and ultimately the 51st state, the delegate vote in the Committee of the Whole is completely unrelated to statehood. It is a proven way to give presence to residents whose taxes help fund the federal government and whose sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, are serving overseas to protect this nation.
Budget autonomy and statehood are for another day. Today we claim the minimum of what has been bought and paid for in lives given in all the nation's wars and in taxes paid to support the government of the United States. It is time that our country returned the favor to at least give the American citizens who live in the District of Columbia the dignity of a vote in the Committee of the Whole they have earned.