Norton’s Remarks at Netroots Nation 2019
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) had a very rare opportunity to speak to a national audience about statehood for the District of Columbia at this year's Netroots Nation in Philadelphia. Norton traveled to Philadelphia in a special train car full of D.C. residents, led by DC Vote, and is undaunted by a recent Gallup poll showing that the majority of Americans oppose D.C. statehood. Norton cites an earlier poll, from 2005, which showed that Americans supported equal voting rights in the House and Senate for D.C.
Norton said efforts to nationalize the D.C. statehood bill have just begun in the last two months and that almost 100 national organizations have endorsed her D.C. statehood bill and are now working for its passage. The Washington, D.C. Admission Act (H.R. 51), Norton's D.C. statehood bill, has almost enough cosponsors to pass in the House of Representatives, which, she says, shows considerable knowledge and support among Members of Congress, who represent the American people. Norton has predicted that the bill will pass the House this Congress.
Below are Norton's remarks, as prepared for delivery, at Netroots Nation
Most Americans know Washington, D.C. as the capital of the United States. Most don't know what distinguishes our capital from every other capital in the world and from every other part of the United States.
Polls show most Americans believe D.C. residents have the same rights they have in the Congress of the United States. But the residents of your nation's capital do not have full voting representation in the House and Senate.
H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, our pending D.C. statehood bill, confers that right on the citizens of the nation's capital by making the District of Columbia the 51st state.
The founders of our nation went to war for voting rights, not for democracy or even for freedom. The war slogan they invented was no taxation without representation. Not give me liberty or death.
Their slogan was no taxation without representation, yet, D.C. residents pay the highest federal taxes per capita in the United States, with no right to be represented in the national legislature with a vote.
There is no evidence that the founders meant no taxation without representation to apply to everyone in the United States except the residents of the capital they created. To the contrary. The founders modeled their capital on the only capitals they knew – the capitals in Europe. George Washington said that the District of Columbia would be what Paris was to France. The citizens of Paris have always had equal voting rights with other French jurisdictions.
The reason the District is controlled by Congress was the refusal of the state of Pennsylvania to protect the Congress itself when the capital was located in Philadelphia. 218 years later, the nation's capital has ample protection with federal and D.C.'s own large safety forces. But our generation is still confronted with the leftover issue of D.C. residents needlessly left without equal rights in the Senate and House.
The current system denies our residents more than two Senators and a voting House member. It deprives D.C. residents of their right to equal citizenship. Only in America do you give up the right to voting representation by moving to the capital or, in my case, being born there. Only in America can you gain the basic citizenship right to be represented in the national legislature by moving from the capital.
The fundamental right in a representative democracy is the right to a vote when decisions are made that affect your life, such as the background check law just passed by the House requiring a background check before every purchase of a gun. I could not vote on that bill to protect the nation's capital or on dozens of other bills passed by the House.
Today, I predict H.R. 51 will pass the House this Congress. The residents of our nation's capital more than meet all the requirements for equal citizenship, which, in turn, requires voting representation in the Congress.
More time in the Union than most states.
More federal taxes paid per capita than the residents of any of the 50 states.
Time is up.
Time for H.R. 51.
Time for statehood for the District of Columbia.