Norton D.C. Statehood Bill Sets Record Cosponsorship in House

WASHINGTON, D.C. – As a lead up to the District of Columbia statehood hearing in the Senate on Monday, September 15, the Office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today announced that Norton's D.C. statehood bill, the New Columbia Admission Act, set a record of 104 House cosponsors, the most since the bill was first introduced in the House, in 1983, by her predecessor Congressman Walter E. Fauntroy, who set the previous record of 101 House cosponsors for the bill, in 1987. This past Monday, Senator Thomas Carper (D-DE), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and sponsor of the Senate companion bill, announced the first District of Columbia statehood hearing in more than two decades. The Senate version of the bill is only one cosponsor away from tying the record of 17 cosponsors since it was first introduced in 1984. The hearing, entitled "Equality for the District of Columbia: Discussing the Implications of S. 132, the New Columbia Admission Act of 2013," will be held on Monday, September 15, 2014, at 3:00 p.m. Norton will testify at the hearing.

"The number of allies for District of Columbia statehood, including President Obama, is now at its height," Norton said. "D.C. has a balanced budget, not to mention a budget surplus, a thriving and growing economy, and more than 650,000 residents, who have never had equal representation in both chambers of Congress. The momentum for statehood is growing before our very eyes – we are closer than ever."

Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), who as Senate Majority Leader rarely cosponsors bills, made an enthusiastic public announcement of his cosponsorship at the unveiling of D.C.'s Frederick Douglass statue in June 2013. The other top three Democratic Senate leaders, Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL), Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Patty Murray (D-WA), are also cosponsors. In July, President Obama announced his support for D.C. statehood at a My Brother's Keeper event.

Norton said that she hopes the progress we have made on the bill will stir even more activism in Congress for equal rights for D.C. residents. She particularly thanked D.C. statehood activists who have gone door-to-door meeting with congressional staff on the bill.

Norton got the only House vote on statehood, in 1993, not long after being elected to Congress. Almost two-thirds of the Democrats voted for the bill and one Republican voted for it, giving the bill a strong start, but the Democrats lost the majority in the next Congress. Since that vote, Norton, while in the minority, was able to get the D.C. House Voting Rights Act through the House in 2007 and the Senate in 2009, which would have given D.C. a voting House member, had it not been derailed by a National Rifle Association-backed amendment that would have wiped out D.C.'s gun safety laws.