Norton to Give Opening Remarks at First D.C. Statehood Gathering Since Historic Senate Hearing, Saturday

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) announced that Norton will give opening remarks at a District of Columbia Statehood Strategy Summit tomorrow, Saturday, November 15, at 10:00 a.m. at First Congregational United Church (9445 G Street NW). The Summit, hosted by the D.C. Statehood Coalition, is the first official gathering of D.C. statehood activists since September's historic Senate hearing on D.C. statehood.

"I am excited to join D.C. statehood activists tomorrow as they decide how to proceed following the unprecedented momentum from the first-ever Senate statehood hearing in more than two decades, in September, and the record number of House and Senate cosponsors on the bill, and how we can chart out next steps for 2015," Norton said. "These are the residents who are driving this movement – taking it from the grassroots all the way up to the national level."

In September, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee held a hearing on the D.C. statehood bill, the New Columbia Admission Act (H.R. 292/S. 132), sponsored by Norton and Senator Tom Carper (D-DE), the chairman of the committee.

Norton got the only House vote on statehood, in 1993, not long after being elected to Congress. Almost two-thirds of the Democrats and one Republican voted for the bill, giving it a strong start, but the Democrats lost the House majority in the next Congress. Since that vote, Norton was able to get the D.C. House Voting Rights Act through the House in 2007 and the Senate in 2009, which would have given D.C. a voting House member had it not been derailed by a National Rifle Association-backed amendment that would have wiped out D.C.'s gun safety laws.