Norton Decries Unprecedented Unfairness to D.C. in 3rd Coronavirus Bill, Already at Work on Retroactive Fix in Next Bill

Washington, D.C. —Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) expressed profound disappointment that the third coronavirus bill, which was signed into law today, treats the District of Columbia as a territory instead of as a state in the state stabilization fund, depriving the District of $750 million. Senate Republicans, who wrote the bill, intentionally treated the District as a territory—even though D.C. pays full federal taxes, pays more in federal taxes than 22 states, and pays more federal taxes per capita than any state. The District is virtually always treated as a state for federal funding. Norton said she is working with House Democratic leaders and Democratic allies in the Senate to make the District whole in the next coronavirus response bill.

In the third coronavirus bill, D.C. is treated as a territory for the first time in memory for purposes of federal funding. The bill gives $3 billion to the five territories and the District based on population, with the District estimated to receive $500 million. In contrast, each state will receive a minimum of $1.25 billion, with states receiving funding above that amount based on population.

The District, at more than 230 COVID-19 cases, has more cases than 28 states and more cases than all the territories combined. The large number of cases in D.C. is likely because the residents of the District live closely together in houses and apartments in a medium-sized city, rather than spread across space like most states.

"We are grateful for the help we got from Democratic Senators and from Democratic House leaders as they tried to help us reverse this unprecedented, last-minute provision preventing state-level funding due the District," Norton said. "This third bill, written in the Senate, deliberately treated D.C. differently from the states, unlike the first two coronavirus bills. Notably, the first two bills were written by the House. We are particularly grateful to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), who tried to get the corrections we are demanding. We will seek to retroactively retrieve what we have lost in addition to any new funds due D.C. in the fourth bill."

Pelosi and Hoyer have indicated they would make every effort to see that the treatment of the nation's capital gets retroactively fixed in the next coronavirus response bill.

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