Norton Gets House Passage of Two Bills Affecting D.C.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) announced that the House of Representatives today passed two bills impacting the District of Columbia. The first bill will modernize and improve the daily operations of the District of Columbia Courts, the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (PDS) and the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency for the District of Columbia (CSOSA). Norton expressed her thanks to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and Ranking Member Elijah Cummings (D-MD), who helped bring the bill to the House floor, and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Ranking Member Tom Carper (D-DE), who got the bill passed in the Senate last September. The 1997 Revitalization Act transferred the costs and operations of some state functions, including these three agencies, to the federal government. Norton introduced the same version of the bill in 2014, which the House passed by voice vote. Among other technical, but important, changes, the bill would authorize CSOSA to use incentives-based programs for offenders, instead of only sanctions to get compliance; allow PDS to accept and use public grants, voluntary and uncompensated services, such as unpaid law clerks and interns and private contributions made to advance PDS’s work; and allow the courts to collect debts owed to it by its employees.

“We are grateful to get this important bill to improve the District of Columbia’s justice system through the Congress and on the way to the President’s desk,” Norton said. “This bill is an example of how we continue to work with our colleagues in the House and Senate to make improvements for the District – no matter which party controls Congress.”

The second bill, the Presidential Allowance Modernization Act, updates the Former President’s Act of 1958, which governs annual pension payments and allowances for former U.S. Presidents and surviving spouses. Norton got a home-rule victory in her committee’s markup of the bill, which had treated the D.C. government as a part of the federal government, as it was in 1958 when the bill was first passed. Norton’s change resulted in the bill recognizing the District as an independent jurisdiction with a locally elected government, which was established by the Home Rule Act of 1973.