Norton and Bowser to Urge House Republicans to Restore Delegate Vote Monday

WASHINGTON, DC – Before the 114th Congress convenes, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) has begun the fight to restore an equal citizenship right District of Columbia residents won, but was taken away by House Republicans in the 112th Congress. In her first public appearance in the Congress, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser will join Norton at a press conference on Monday, January 5, at 10:30 a.m., in Cannon 421. Also speaking will be Kerwin Miller, a D.C. veteran, graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, chair of Norton's Service Academy Board, and former director of the D.C. Department of Veteran Affairs. They will call on the House Republican majority to restore the District's vote on the House floor in the Committee of the Whole in the rules of the 114th Congress.

WHO:

-Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton

-D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser

-Kerwin Miller, D.C. Veteran

WHEN: Monday, January 5, 2015, 10:30 a.m.

WHERE: Cannon 421

BACKGROUND:

The Committee of the Whole vote allows the D.C. delegate to vote on some amendments on the House floor. A revote would occur if such a vote was decisive, but that almost never occurs, and Norton has voted on important amendments, including some affecting the District.

The Congresswoman first secured a vote in the Committee of the Whole during the 103rd Congress, when Democrats were in the majority. Shortly after becoming a Member of the House, Norton proposed the Committee of the Whole vote in a legal memorandum to House Democratic leaders, who, after vetting it with outside counsel, agreed that the vote was constitutional. A federal district court and a federal appeals court upheld its constitutionality after Republicans challenged the D.C. vote in court. When House Republicans regained the majority in the 104th Congress, however, they eliminated D.C.'s vote in the Committee of the Whole. In the 110th Congress, Democrats regained control of the House and, at Norton's request, restored the vote. On the first day as the new majority, House Republicans adopted rules for the 112th Congress that stripped D.C. residents of their vote on the House floor in the Committee of the Whole. In each Congress, Norton has sought restoration of the D.C. vote.

Earlier this month, Norton sent a letter to Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (R-TX) requesting that the House rules for the 114th Congress permit the District of Columbia delegate to vote on the House floor in the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union, and she testified before the House Rules Committee.

In a breakthrough for D.C. statehood, Norton convinced Senator Tom Carper to hold the first jurisdictional congressional hearing on D.C. statehood last September. Norton, city officials, and experts testified at the Senate committee hearing on her bill to make D.C. the 51st state, which has a record number of House and Senate cosponsors.