Norton Seeks Delegate Vote on House Floor in the Committee of the Whole, Releases Testimony for Today’s Rules Committee Hearing
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Two days after asking the Senate to give the District of Columbia statehood, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) will be testifying at the House Rules Committee today, at 11:00 a.m. in H-313, The Capitol, to try to retrieve a vote on the House floor in the Committee of the Whole, a vote she won shortly after being elected to Congress. House Republicans took that vote away when they regained the majority in the 112th Congress. Norton wrote, "When permitted, the delegate vote has had no adverse impact on the operations of the House, but its importance to the taxpaying American citizens who live in the District cannot be overstated." She argued, "There is nothing more painful – or rare – than losing a vote you once had in our country," and the vote she seeks for the "more than 650,000 Americans citizens who pay their full freight in federal taxes and have fought in all the nation's wars" is not a matter of rights, but "a matter of discretion." Norton pointed out, "American people who live in the nation's capital have proudly served in every war, beginning with the Revolutionary War, pay full federal taxes, and serve on federal juries," and District residents "value the vote, however insignificant it may be to others."
Norton first won the vote for D.C. in the Committee of the Whole in the 103rd Congress, under Democratic leadership. Norton, then in the majority, submitted a legal memorandum to her own leadership arguing that the District had a vote in standing committees under the rules of the House and therefore should have a vote on the House floor in the Committee of the Whole, which is also established by House rules. Republicans challenged the rule in federal court, but it was found constitutional under Article I of the U.S. Constitution by both a federal district court and a federal appeals court. Since then, D.C. has been permitted to vote in the Committee of the Whole when Democrats have controlled the House, but the vote has been taken away when Republicans are in power.
On Monday, Norton testified at a Senate committee hearing on her bill to make D.C. the 51st state, a bill which has a record number of House and Senate cosponsors. The hearing on D.C. statehood was the first in more than 20 years.
Norton's written testimony submitted to the Rules Committee follows:
Statement of
Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton
Members Day Hearing on Proposed Rules Changes for 114th Congress
House Rules Subcommittee on Rules and Organization
September 17, 2014
Thank you, Chairman Nugent and Ranking Member McGovern. I appreciate the opportunity to be here.
I request that the House rules for the 114th Congress permit the District of Columbia delegate to vote in the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union, subject to an automatic revote if such vote is decisive. When permitted, the delegate vote has had no adverse impact on the operations of the House, but its importance to the taxpaying American citizens who live in the District cannot be overstated.
There is nothing more painful – or rare – than losing a vote you once had in our country. Rights have tended to come slowly in America, but once they came, they have been respected regardless of party.
The vote I seek for the residents of the District of Columbia in the 114th Congress is not a matter of rights. It is a matter of discretion. I ask for the vote in the Committee of the Whole in the House out of respect for the more than 650,000 American citizens who pay their full freight in federal taxes and have fought in all the nation's wars. The District first won the Committee of the Whole vote in the 103rd Congress, after I submitted a legal memorandum to Speaker Tom Foley. Based entirely on longtime House precedent, I argued that the District had a vote in committees, under House rules, and that by the same logic the city should also have the same vote in the Committee of the Whole as a matter of House rules. Neither the District's committee votes nor the vote in the Committee of the Whole itself were final, and the Committee of the Whole itself was established by House rules, not by the Constitution. Therefore, no constitutional issue was raised.
The Speaker did not depend on my memorandum, however. He referred the question to outside lawyers. Their legal advice was that a Committee of the Whole vote for the District of Columbia was constitutional and in the discretion of the House. The House used its discretion and granted the District its first vote on the House floor.
Wherever members may stand on full voting rights or statehood for District of Columbia residents, the Committee of the Whole vote is not related to these matters. The federal courts were clear about the difference and the limits that were placed on the Committee of the Whole vote after the Republican majority filed suit to stop the vote. 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 Court of Appeals noted the longstanding practice of the House to allow delegates to vote in standing committees and found that the Committee of the Whole vote was not constitutionally distinct from that practice. The court said, "Suffice it to say that we think that insofar as the rule change bestowed additional authority on the delegates, that additional authority is largely symbolic and is not significantly greater than that which they enjoyed serving and voting on the standing committees." Consequently, as the court said, the Committee of the Whole vote is markedly different from the vote of representatives of the states. In Michel, the court specifically considered whether only representatives of the states can constitutionally vote in the Committee of the Whole, and concluded that this vote is simply a "minor addition to the office of delegates [that] has [no] constitutional significance."
Affording the District a limited vote on the House floor poses no more risk to the Majority than our vote in the committees on which I serve. The congressional voting rights District residents have always sought must travel an altogether different, and far more difficult, route that does not intersect with the vote we ask of the House today.
With return of the Committee of the Whole vote to the District of Columbia, residents' anguish would become appreciation. Residents would understand that what this D.C. vote lacks in power, it gains respect from my colleagues for the taxpaying residents of our nation's capital. It would be difficult to think of a better start for the 114th Congress than a vote by the House for rules that signals sufficient bipartisanship to show respect for the citizens of the home city of the Congress, and affirmation of the majority's own principles on taxing the American people.
The House rules have permitted the delegate vote in the Committee of the Whole in three Congresses. The automatic revote provision was triggered only four times in six years of voting, with three in the 103rd Congress, zero in the 110th Congress and one in the 111th Congress. While the delegate vote has no significance to the work of the House, District residents, as you can imagine, value the vote, however insignificant it may be to others. The American citizens who live in the District have the same obligations of citizenship as the American citizens who live in the states. The American people who live in the nation's capital have proudly served in every war, beginning with the Revolutionary War, pay full federal taxes, and serve on federal juries.