Norton, Mayor Gray, and National Organizations to Take United Stand Against D.C. Appropriations Riders at Press Conference, Tuesday

WASHINGTON, DC – The office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) announced that a Save D.C. Home Rule press conference with District of Columbia Mayor Vincent Gray and national groups whose issues have been attacked in the past by using the District of Columbia as a vehicle will be held on Tuesday, May 28, 2013, at 11:00 a.m. in 2168 Rayburn House Office Building. The national organizations' leaders – Planned Parenthood Federation of America (senior official TBD), Coalition to Stop Gun Violence Executive Director Josh Horwitz, AIDS United Director of Government Affairs Donna Crews, and DC Vote Executive Director Kimberly Perry – will discuss their intentions to use their nationwide networks, along with a network of 100 likeminded organizations, to contact members of the House and Senate appropriations committees to protect D.C.'s home-rule rights in the fiscal year 2014 D.C. appropriations bill.

The focus of the press conference will be protecting D.C.'s laws on gun safety, needle exchange, and reproductive rights, and alerting members of the House and Senate to these issues.

Other groups that will be in attendance include the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the Center for Reproductive Rights, the National Abortion Federation, the Reproductive Health Technologies Project, the Black Women's Health Imperative, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, and the Center for American Progress.

WHO (all groups): Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, Mayor Vincent Gray, DC Vote, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, AIDS United, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the Center for Reproductive Rights, the National Abortion Federation, the Reproductive Health Technologies Project, the Black Women's Health Imperative, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, the Center for American Progress, and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence

WHAT: Press Conference on D.C. Appropriations Riders

WHEN: Tuesday, May 28, 2013, 11:00 a.m. – noon

WHERE: 2168 Rayburn House Office Building

In just the first five months of the 113th Congress, there have already been significant attacks on the District of Columbia. For example:

• Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) reintroduced the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act (H.R. 7/S. 946), which would, among other things, make permanent law the annual rider that prohibits the District from spending its local funds on abortions for low-income women. This bill passed the House last Congress, but was not taken up in the Senate.

• Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) reintroduced his bill, which has 32 cosponsors, to ban abortions after 20 weeks in the District of Columba, after filing an amendment to the Senate budget resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that Congress should pass such a bill. Representative Trent Franks (R-AZ) reintroduced his companion D.C. abortion ban bill, which was defeated on the House floor last Congress, but has since expanded it to a nationwide ban, which is a victory for home rule but not for reproductive choice.

• Representative Phil Gingrey (R-GA) introduced a resolution (H.RES.40) expressing the sense of the House that active duty military personnel in D.C. should be exempt from D.C.'s gun laws, but not those of any other jurisdiction. Last Congress, the resolution was included in the House version of the fiscal year 2013 Defense Authorization bill, but Norton got the provision removed from the version signed into law.

Published: May 24, 2013