Norton Fights to Remove Anti-Home-Rule Provision and Calls on Justice Department to Withdraw Support??

Norton Fights to Remove Anti-Home-Rule Provision and Calls on Justice Department to Withdraw Support

November 30, 2011

WASHINGTON, DC -- Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) is working with the House Judiciary Committee to head off a provision in the Clean Up Government Act of 2011 (H.R. 2572), which will be marked up on Thursday, that makes a current federal embezzlement and theft criminal statute (18 U.S.C. § 641) also applicable to only one local jurisdiction, the District of Columbia. The bill would make it a federal crime to steal the property of the District of Columbia, but not of any other state or local jurisdiction. "Not only does the provision violate the District's right to self-government, it is unnecessary because the District has had similar local embezzlement and theft criminal laws in place for decades," Norton said. Norton also thanked D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown for bringing the issue to her attention yesterday. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a companion measure, the Public Corruption Prosecution Improvements Act (S. 401), earlier this year.

Norton has contacted House Judiciary Committee Republicans and Democrats, as well as the Department of Justice (DOJ), and believes that neither is responsible for this provision, which is a carryover from a prior DOJ version of the bill. She has also written to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) and subcommittee chairman, Representative James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-WI), the bill's lead sponsor, asking that they follow the recent example of Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) and work directly with the city and Norton regarding their concerns with a local D.C. law. Norton will be making the same request to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT), the lead sponsor of the Senate version. Earlier this month, Issa pulled his bill on D.C. hiring practices, after Chairman Brown assured Issa that the city was moving forward with its own hiring reform legislation. After learning yesterday that the DOJ has supported this anti-home-rule provision in the past, Norton called the DOJ requesting that it pull its support for the provision.

"As we have seen throughout my service in Congress, most recently with Chairman Issa's D.C. hiring bill, conversations between Members, the city and me often lead to satisfactory solutions that address Members' concerns while preserving the District's home rule," Norton said. Norton's position, as well as the District's, is, of course, that Congress should never legislate for the District or otherwise violate the District's home rule, but she said that this provision seems to be a classic case where Members simply may need to be informed about the existence of similar District laws or work with the city about possible deficiencies in its current laws.

H.R. 2572 will be marked up on Thursday, December 1, 2011, at 1:30 p.m. in 2141 Rayburn House Office Building.