Norton Calls on Issa to Let D.C. Do Its Home-Rule Job
Norton Calls on Issa to Let D.C. Do Its Home-Rule Job
March 17, 2011
WASHINGTON, DC -- Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) responded today to an announcement of an investigation of local District of Columbia matters by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee:
"As a member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, I am outraged that a congressional committee with a full agenda would make a detour to investigate a purely local matter. There is no congressional issue at stake in a probe of local matters. Contrary to Chairman Darrel Issa's (R-CA) assertion today that "federal taxpayer dollars fund a large portion of the District's budget," less than 2 percent of the District of Columbia's $10 billion budget comes from special federal payments. The Congress has delegated full home-rule authority to the District to examine these allegations, and the District is using that authority to the fullest. Our local legislature and our local prosecutor, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, promptly opened separate, independent investigations, which are ongoing. A congressional investigation would take the new House Republican majority's obsession with invading the District's home rule to a new low. I hope to meet with Chairman Issa to ask him to defer to the investigations now underway."