Echoing House Majority Leader, Norton Urges Congress to Save Money and Time by Eliminating D.C. Paperwork

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In response to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy's (R-CA) proposal yesterday to save money and time by reducing the number of reports federal agencies must submit to Congress, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said today that Congress could save itself and the District of Columbia significant money and time by reducing the amount of paperwork the District must transmit to Congress. In particular, "Congress should eliminate the costly, time-consuming and anachronistic congressional review process for D.C. legislation, which files paperwork here that Congress ignores," Norton said. "Although Congress unwittingly created a Kafkaesque congressional review process to disapprove of D.C. legislation in the Home Rule Act of 1973, Congress soon realized that the process did not work for itself and effectively abandoned it. Yet the D.C. Council and Congress still must go through the bureaucratic and pro forma motions of a phantom review process."

Under the Home Rule Act, legislation passed by the D.C. Council, including minor bills like those naming buildings and streets, must be transmitted to Congress for a review period (30 legislative days for civil laws and 60 legislative days for criminal laws). If a resolution of disapproval is not enacted into law during that period, the D.C. legislation takes effect. Since 1973, more than 5,000 D.C. legislative acts have been transmitted to Congress, and only three resolutions to disapprove a D.C. bill have been enacted – in 1979, 1981, and 1991 – and two of those involved distinct federal interests. Instead of using the congressional review period to overturn D.C. legislation, Congress has long used riders to the D.C. Appropriations bill to overturn D.C. legislation.

While Congress no longer uses the congressional review period to overturn D.C. legislation, Congress and the District each must devote significant resources to complying with the rules. After the Council passes legislation, the bills, and all the accompanying committee reports, are transmitted to the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate. The internal House and Senate administrative offices must process the bills, enter them into the congressional record, and then refer them to the committees with D.C. jurisdiction, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The committees then review the bills.

The Council estimates that it could save 5,000 employee-hours and 160,000 sheets of paper per Council period if the review period were eliminated. The review period, based on legislative, not calendar, days means, for example, that a 30-day period usually lasts three calendar months and often much longer because of congressional recesses. In one instance, the review period for a bill that changed the word "handicap" to "disability" lasted nine months. The Council has estimated that 50-65 percent of the bills it passes could be eliminated if the review period did not exist. To ensure predictability, the Council often must pass the same legislation in three forms -- emergency (in effect for 90 days), temporary (in effect for 225 days) and permanent. Moreover, the Council has to track the days Congress is in session for each piece of temporary and permanent legislation it passes to avoid gaps and to determine when the bills have taken effect.

President Obama's fiscal year 2015 budget and the Senate's fiscal year 2015 D.C. Appropriations bill include Norton's bill to eliminate the review period, the first budget and appropriations bill that would grant D.C. legislative autonomy. Norton is working to get the provision included in the final fiscal year 2015 D.C. Appropriations bill.

Majority Leader McCarthy's proposal can be found here.