Norton, Bowser Detail Efforts to Protect D.C. Local Laws from Congressional Interference
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) released Norton's prepared remarks from her press conference today with District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser and national organizations working to protect local D.C. laws from being blocked or overturned by Congress during the appropriations process.
In her remarks, Norton said: "Together, those who join us are helping the District maintain the integrity of the Home Rule Act. The District, of course, is fighting for statehood this year, which would render anti-home-rule amendments impossible. Yet even without statehood, existing law entitles the District to an equal seat in government under the Home Rule Act. We will press law as it exists today to its limits as we demand to become the 51st state of the United States."
Norton's remarks, as prepared for delivery, follow:
"My sincere thanks to Mayor Bowser and to all our speakers for joining us at the Capitol to expose the effects of congressional interference into the local, internal affairs of the District of Columbia and discuss what we intend to do about it. Most Americans do not know that the 700,000 District residents who live in their nation's capital do not have the rights that they take for granted, and worse, that the residents of their nation's capital rank number one in federal income taxes paid to support the federal government.
"Today, we also welcome speaking representatives from NARAL Pro-Choice America, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), DC Vote, and Compassion and Choices. I would also like to thank other coalition partners in attendance today: the Human Rights Campaign, Catholics for Choice, All* Above All, DCMJ, Giffords, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, Planned Parenthood, Planned Parenthood D.C., the National Partnership for Women and Families, and the National Cannabis Industry Association. Thank you all for being here and for lending your expertise to defending our self-governing rights in the District of Columbia.
"Unlike the last several years, where we saw more attacks on the District's local laws than in recent memory, things have changed in the 116th Congress. Democrats now control the House of Representatives. Last year, the Republican Congress took their best shot with an unusual number of bills and amendments, and we defeated most of them. For example: attempts to strip D.C. of all its gun safety laws, of its D.C. Death with Dignity Act, and an attempt to fund private schools with local public money failed. Now that Democrats, who believe in local democracy, control the House, Oversight and Reform Chairman Elijah Cummings has agreed to my request to eliminate the D.C. subcommittee altogether. As the appropriations period begins in earnest on Monday, we are confident we can secure a clean House appropriations bill for fiscal year 2020.
"However, we are alerting the public today because with Republicans controlling the Senate and White House, nothing is certain. Even with Democratic control of the House, Republican House Members are continuing to introduce anti-home-rule amendments – one on education, one on the District's Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Act, one on recreational marijuana, two on health care, and three on abortion. We intend to keep them all from moving forward in the House. The goal of this Republican interference is to get financial contributions, to satisfy special interests or to raise their own profiles at home by attacking our progressive city. Fortunately, our coalition of local and national organizations is not intimidated. The D.C. budget, the vehicle for this interference, has no rightful place on the congressional agenda, because it is a local budget funded by the District of Columbia, not the federal government. Democratic control of the House gives us out best opportunity in years to make the case for "Hands Off D.C.," and we intend to take full advantage of it.
"In fiscal year 2019, two D.C. riders were enacted into law: one prohibiting D.C. from spending its local funds on abortion for low-income women and one prohibiting commercializing recreational marijuana. Today, our coalition will speak about these and other riders that Republicans will likely try to impose upon the District. We have defeated most of these before and, with the help of our coalition, we expect to do so again.
"We are emboldened by past successes achieved even when Republicans controlled the House and Senate. For example, when Representative Andy Harris (R-MD) wanted to block the D.C. law regulating the labeling of wet wipes for safe flushing, we shamed him endlessly for his barefaced handout to the corporations that produce wet wipes, and he ultimately withdrew his amendment. No member who seeks to interfere with how the District spends local funds will get a free pass. We stand ready to defeat every one of these insulting, and sometimes downright ridiculous, anti-home-rule riders.
"Kate Ryan of NARAL Pro-Choice America will speak about efforts to protect the District's Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Act (RHNDA), which prohibits employers in D.C. from discriminating against employees, their spouses or their dependents, based on their reproductive health decisions, law we have successfully defended in the past. Kate will also discuss the prohibition on D.C. funds for abortions for low-income women, the most difficult of the two remaining riders.
"Justin Strekal of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) will discuss the rider blocking D.C. from spending its local funds on commercializing recreational marijuana. Barbara Helmick of DC Vote will discuss the continued disenfranchisement of D.C. residents, and Kim Callinan of Compassion and Choices will speak about the attacks on the District's medical aid-in-dying law, the D.C. Death with Dignity Act.
"Republicans have not given up. Witness their insulting response to HR 1, filed by Representatives Paul Gosar of Arizona and Mark Meadows from North Carolina. The House of Representatives endorsed D.C statehood for the first time by either House, but this amendment states:
"It is the sense of Congress that the Congress is the proper, constitutionally-mandated sovereign over the District of Columbia and that increasing congressional oversight of the District is a wise course, in particular improving disapproval mechanisms of the Home Rule Act to ensure that poor municipal ordinances made by the congressionally-provided, and congressionally-revocable authority provided to Washington D.C.'s municipal government can be expeditiously overturned by the Congress; (2) the District of Columbia should never become a state."
"Together, those who join us are helping the District maintain the integrity of the Home Rule Act. The District, of course, is fighting for statehood this year, which would render anti-home-rule amendments impossible. Yet even without statehood, existing law entitles the District to an equal seat in government under the Home Rule Act. We will press law as it exists today to its limits as we demand to become the 51st state of the United States."