Norton Prepares Amendment to Strike D.C. Abortion Rider from Appropriations Bill and Warns Residents about Possible City Shutdown
Norton Prepares Amendment to Strike D.C. Abortion Rider from Appropriations Bill and Warns Residents about Possible City Shutdown
December 15, 2011
Washington, DC – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) has prepared an amendment to the House Republican fiscal year 2012 omnibus appropriations bill, and will go to the House Committee on Rules to object in the strongest terms to an attempt to keep the District of Columbia from spending its own local funds on abortion services for the city's most vulnerable women for the second year in a row, and to another possibility of a District government shutdown if Congress does not pass a spending bill or a continuing resolution by Friday. It is not yet clear if and when the Rules Committee will meet, however. "A redux of the near-shutdown of the District government, coupled again with dictating to our residents how to spend their own funds, should be unthinkable," Norton said. "The do-nothing 112th Republican House has no major bill to its credit. But it leaves as part of its infamous signature bullying the American citizens who live in the nation's capital, and using shut-down negotiation tactics, with palpable harm to the people of this country, especially the residents of the District of Columbia. We will never let the refusal to observe the principles of democracy here pass without a fight. It is outrageous enough to pay taxes without representation in the national government. When Congress compounds the injury by confiscating the District's own funding judgments, do not expect us to go quietly into the night."
Norton has drafted an amendment that would eliminate the D.C. abortion rider from the House Republican omnibus appropriations bill. She will offer her amendment if and when the legislation is brought up in the Rules Committee. Norton has also alerted D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray that Congress might not pass a new spending bill or a continuing resolution before the current continuing resolution expires Friday night, which would force much of the federal government, as well as the District government, to shut down. Congress has yet to pass nine of the 12 fiscal year 2012 appropriations bills, including the one that approves D.C.'s local budget. If the federal government shuts down on Friday, the D.C. government would shut down, too, because, although the city approved a balanced budget months ago, it cannot spend its own local funds without congressional approval.
Norton's pending "District of Columbia Fiscal Year 2012 Local Funds Continuation Act" would prevent a D.C. government shutdown in the event of a federal shutdown by permitting D.C. to spend its local funds for the rest of fiscal year 2012, a bill similar to one Norton introduced in fiscal year 2011. Earlier this year, President Obama requested that the first fiscal year 2012 continuing resolution authorize D.C. to spend its local funds for the entire fiscal year. Norton also has a bill, H.R. 980, pending to keep the District government open whenever the federal government shuts down in the future.
###
Statement of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton
H.R. 3671 - Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012
House Committee on Rules
I am back before you today to make virtually the same statement I made only eight months ago. The bill tramples on the District of Columbia's right to self-government by prohibiting it from spending its own local funds on abortion services for low-income women, and Congress has brought the District government within 36 hours of shutting down. My amendment would permit the District to spend its own local funds on abortions for low-income women, as every other jurisdiction in the United States is permitted to do. It is ironic that the D.C. abortion rider, the least democratic provision in the bill, is in the same section as a rider that the sponsors believe will promote democracy in Communist Cuba by further restricting travel and remittances to Cuba. This irony is reminiscent of the final fiscal year 2011 spending bill, where the D.C. abortion rider was paired with a Guantanamo Bay-detainees rider. You may not have heard my repeated pleas before the committee and on the floor to respect home rule during the fiscal year 2011 spending bill ordeal, but you certainly heard from District residents. Only days after that spending deal was announced, hundreds of D.C. residents, led by Mayor Vincent Gray, D.C. council members and DC Vote, engaged in an unprecedented protest, and 41 D.C. residents, including Mayor Gray and council members, were arrested after they blocked traffic on Constitution Avenue. In total, 72 D.C. residents have been arrested protesting congressional interference in D.C.'s affairs, and three D.C. residents are now in the 8th day of a hunger strike protesting D.C.'s second-class status.
In a repeat of yet another outrage, unless Congress agrees on a spending bill or a continuing resolution before midnight Friday, the District government will be forced to shut down, which would be an unintended catastrophe for the 600,000 American citizens residing in the District, as well as for the federal government. Even though the District raises and manages its own $8 billion budget, which it approved months ago, Congress technically appropriates these local funds to the District, an anachronistic holdover from the pre-home-rule period. The District has nothing to do with the dispute over the payroll tax cut. I do not believe any Member wants to shut down the D.C. government and bring a large, complicated city to its knees because of a purely federal matter. If the District shuts down, in addition to the vital municipal services that would cease, the District could default under certain financing agreements and leases. Federal officials, including the president, federal buildings, foreign embassies and dignitaries, and businesses rely daily on the city's services, as well. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa offered a budget autonomy proposal, similar to my pending budget autonomy bill, that would prevent future D.C. shutdowns by allowing the District's budget to take effect without congressional approval.
As long as the District is compelled to submit its budget to Congress, we will continue to insist that Congress, at a minimum, respect the city's prerogative to spend locally raised revenues as city officials prescribe. Why waste this committee's and Congress' time? Let D.C. spend its own local funds when and how it sees fit.