Norton Delighted About Obama’s Unequivocal Call for D.C. Statehood

WASHINGTON, DC – In a statement, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said that she was "thrilled" to learn that President Barack Obama called for statehood for the District of Columbia at a My Brother's Keeper initiative town hall meeting today. Her statement follows:

"I am thrilled that the President has brought together his long support for all the elements of statehood with his endorsement of statehood itself today. The President's direct response to a question on his opinion of D.C. statehood left no doubt that he had given serious thought to the issue:

‘I'm in D.C., so I'm for it. No, look, I think I've long believed that D.C. pays -- folks in D.C. pay taxes like everybody else. They contribute to the overall well-being of the country like everybody else. They should be represented like everybody else. And it's not as if Washington, D.C. is not big enough compared to other states. There has been a long movement to get D.C. statehood and I've been for it for quite some time. The politics of it end up being difficult to get it through Congress, but I think it's absolutely the right thing to do. All right, that was an easy one.'

"I am not surprised that the President supports statehood. In fact, the President has long been on record in support of three primary elements of statehood, budget autonomy and legislative autonomy, which are in his Fiscal Year 2015 budget; and, voting rights. Residents were elated when the President rode across town at his second inauguration in a presidential limousine with the iconic ‘Taxation without Representation' D.C. license plate.

"As I have seen over the years, big changes in our country do not come all at once, as they should. They come in doses until the needed change emerges. The President is correct that our almost 650,000 District residents ‘pay taxes like everybody else [and] should be represented like everybody else.' There is only one way for the District of Columbia to have the same rights as other Americans, and that, of course, is to become the 51^st State. Those who demand our local budget so that they can impose their will on our people with no accountability for their actions from the governed make the case for statehood with each undemocratic attempt to nullify the rights of our residents."

When Norton came to Congress, she persuaded the House, then controlled by Democrats, to give her a vote on statehood and got almost two-thirds of the heavily Democratic Congress to vote for statehood. However, the Republicans took control the next year and have remained in control for all but a few years since Norton has been in Congress.