Norton Gets Assurances Today from President Obama on Protecting the District's Home Rule

Norton Gets Assurances Today from President Obama on Protecting the District's Home Rule

May 12, 2011

WASHINGTON, DC -- Today, at a meeting with President Barack Obama and members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) discussed critical D.C. home-rule issues, while six other CBC members discussed key issues of national importance, focusing on jobs and the economy.

Norton thanked President Obama for his long support for the District, dating from his tenure in the Senate, for voting rights and home rule, for his explicit support for budget autonomy in his fiscal year 2012 budget proposal, for the lengthy and encouraging conversations she has had with highly-placed administration officials since passage of the fiscal year 2011 continuing resolution (CR), and for his specific mention of the District in the veto threat on H.R. 3, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, which includes a provision that would make permanent the restriction on the District's use of its local funds for abortions for low-income women. Norton recalled that she had written a letter to the President that provided a detailed analysis on how the CR negotiations could possibly have achieved a better resolution for the District. She also expressed gratitude that the Democratic CR negotiators held fast and preserved D.C.'s ability to fund needle exchange programs, vital to preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS here.

However, Norton told the President about the great disappointment residents experienced when they learned that the only controversial riders in the CR were two D.C. riders--restricting the District's use of its local funds for the remainder of fiscal year 2011 for abortions for low-income women, and creating a new, five-year D.C. private school voucher program. She said that the District fights hard to protect its home rule, but, in the end, the city is uniquely and disproportionately dependent on the President. Norton asked whether the President, in light of the tendency of House Republicans to violate the District's home rule, would be willing to alert senior White House staff to be watchful and vigilant and to do all they could to protect the District's right to democratic self-government. The President indicated that he would do everything he could to protect D.C.'s home rule. He said that home rule was important to him, as President, and as a resident of the District of Columbia.