Carper, Three Others Introduce Companion to Norton’s D.C. Statehood Bill in Senate Today

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) announced that four senators today introduced the companion to her bill to grant the District of Columbia statehood. The New Columbia Admission Act was introduced by Senator Thomas Carper (D-DE), the expected new chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which has jurisdiction over the District, along with three cosponsors, Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL), Patty Murray (D-WA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA).

"By introducing a D.C. statehood bill so early in his expected chairmanship," Norton said, "Senator Carper has started off by filling the large void left when his predecessor, Joseph Lieberman, retired last Congress. Joe took his leadership on D.C. equality issues in the Senate seriously, and I could not be more thrilled that Senator Carper has chosen to begin by offering leadership on the District's ultimate goal, statehood." Norton met with Carper in early December to discuss D.C. matters, and their offices have been in close contact since then.

The Congresswoman introduced the New Columbia Admission Act as her first bill this Congress, as she did when she first entered Congress in 1991. Norton said: "D.C. residents have always had all of the obligations of citizenship, and surely after more than 200 years, the nation is overdue in pairing full obligations with full rights. It is fitting that the statehood bill was introduced in the Senate only a few days after the world got to see D.C.'s ‘Taxation Without Representation' license plate on President Obama's vehicles during the inauguration. We need to keep reminding the country at every opportunity that the more than 600,000 American citizens who live in the nation's capital are treated as second-class citizens."

Last Congress, Lieberman, along with Senators Durbin, Murray and Boxer, introduced the first D.C. statehood bill in the Senate since 1993. Murray and Boxer cosponsored the New Columbia Admission Act, and then-Representative Durbin voted for it, in the 103rd Congress, when Norton got the first and only House vote and a Senate hearing on D.C. statehood. "We are grateful that Senators Durbin, Murray and Boxer continue to be champions for the District," Norton said. "They put into practice the truism that as we work to promote democracy around the globe, we cannot be completely credible until the promise of democracy is realized in the nation's capital."

"Although Republican democracy deniers control the House," Norton said, there has been a breakthrough, beginning last Congress, on budget autonomy, a major component of statehood. Earlier this week, Norton reintroduced her bill to grant D.C. budget autonomy. Last Congress, budget autonomy gained new momentum when leading Republicans, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA), who chairs the committee with jurisdiction over D.C., and Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell (R), announced their support for it.

Published: January 24, 2013