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Norton to Speak at Swearing-In Ceremony for D.C. Council, Today

January 2, 2017

WASHINGTON, D.C.—In remarks at the District of Columbia Council swearing-in ceremony today at the Washington Convention Center, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) will offer her outlook on what a Republican-controlled Congress and executive means for the District in 2017. She will also swear in Councilmember Robert White, who served in her congressional office from 2008-2013.

Norton's remarks, as prepared for delivery, are below.

I thank Mayor Bowser, Council Chairman Mendelson, and our Council for grabbing the reins of our city the first working day of the New Year to organize and get to work. I do not get sworn in as a Member of Congress until tomorrow.

As the new Congress begins, I ask only that the city continue to go about its day-to-day business as if Congress did not exist. That may seem like ignoring the monster in the room. The disappointments of the 2016 elections left one commentator to sum up 2016 as "a miserable maggot rot of a year." That year has passed now, and I ask you to approach 2017 with optimism, as I do.

For starters, Congress is beginning in a state of confusion. The president-elect and the Republican-controlled House and Senate start on different pages on major issues confronting our country—trade, Putin and Russia, and infrastructure, for example. I intend to take advantage of congressional confusion to benefit the District wherever I can. However, I am disappointed by calls by some observers for Congress to fix crime issues in the District of Columbia because of the mixture of local and federal control of our criminal justice system. The statue that has stirred the most concern and controversy, the Youth Rehabilitation Act, was passed by D.C. authorities without any federal intervention. I commend Councilmember Charles Allen, although just appointed to chair the Council's Judiciary Committee, for charting early home-rule action. Any changes to our criminal justice system should be initiated and recommended by the District, not Congress. Of course, Congress ultimately may have to pass legislation to make improvements, but it should follow D.C.'s lead, not the other way around.

Nothing is more dangerous for D.C. than suggestions for congressional intervention, especially today. The House is a hotbed of Members who look for opportunities to violate home rule and paste their own agendas on the District, and there are no positive indications of where the president-elect stands on D.C.'s right to self-government. Faced with a Republican executive branch, the Republican Congress no longer has President Obama or his Democratic administration to attack. D.C. is an inviting target. Watch what you wish for—the only gifts this Congress has for the District are burdens we do not want.

Recognizing that expectations of doom can be self-fulfilling, let us choose another course. When New Gingrich became speaker of the House after 40 years of Democratic control, the end of the world was forecast. With Newt as speaker, however, D.C. had some of its best years with the Congress. Newt as speaker did not violate home rule, he helped us protect home rule, and he protected D.C. from some shutdowns. Newt assisted our efforts that removed D.C. from insolvency, allowing the District to build a new economy, now considered one of the best in the nation.

Of course, each Congress brings new actors and issues, none more so than the upcoming 115th Congress. The District, as a Democratic stronghold, is vulnerable to a conservative, Republican-controlled federal government. Yet, the last Congress gave the District something of a dry run that we will try to repeat. We had a Republican-controlled House and Senate, but working in the Senate, we saved the budget autonomy referendum from being overturned, defeated eight attempts to block or overturn D.C.'s gun safety laws, defeated 18 other attempts to overturn D.C. laws, and got a record $40 million for DCTAG, the federal program that has doubled college attendance for our young people.

We do not underestimate what a Republican executive and a Republican Congress can mean for the District in 2017, but we can refuse to indulge pessimism and forge ahead, continuing to take charge of our own city, while warning Congress not to toy with local democracy. The last word on this matter was the 85 percent vote by D.C. residents in the statehood referendum, a mandate for full and unequivocal democracy for the people of the District of Columbia. The challenges of the New Year present an opportunity to show we are embarking on that mandate.

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