Norton Releases Her Remarks from Today’s Press Conference Ahead of Tomorrow’s House Vote on D.C. Statehood Bill

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) released her remarks from today's press conference ahead of tomorrow's historic House vote on her District of Columbia statehood bill (H.R. 51). Norton joined Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-MD), Senator Tom Carper (D-DE), and Committee on Oversight and Reform Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) at the press conference. With 216 cosponsors, the bill is virtually assured House passage tomorrow, which will mark the second time in history a chamber has passed the D.C. statehood bill. The first was when the House passed the bill last year.

Norton's remarks, as prepared for delivery, follow.

"I appreciate the strong initiative and support of our leaders for full equality for the residents of our nation's capital as we make final preparations for tomorrow's historic debate and vote, which all of us have worked to achieve. I thank Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Hoyer, Chairwoman Maloney and Senator Carper for standing together to ensure that the citizens of the District of Columbia are on their way to statehood in order to achieve equality with other American citizens and with the citizens of the capitals of all of the world's democratic countries.

"In fact, according to the most recent detailed poll, 54% of the American people now support D.C. statehood. That majority is the result of how our hearings have educated the public about what they did not know about the rights of the residents of their nation's capital.

"Across the United States today, Americans are taking down the remnants of the Confederacy as symbols of inequality, just as the House of Representatives is raising up its nation's capital to ensure equality for its citizens.

"Not long after being elected to the House, I got the first-ever floor vote in either chamber on the D.C. statehood bill. Even with my party in power then, the House did not pass the bill because some Democrats opposed it. Today, however, Democrats from every section of the nation are united on the principle that equal responsibilities, such as paying federal income taxes to support the nation and serving in the armed forces to defend it, demand equal rights in return.

"My service in Congress has been dedicated to achieving equality for the people I represent, which only statehood can provide. My life as a third-generation Washingtonian has marched toward this milestone, mindful that my own family has never known equality in our own country. My great-grandfather Richard Holmes walked away as a slave from a plantation in Virginia. I continue on the walk that got my family to freedom in this city until all of us who live today in the District go the full distance to achieve the prize of equal citizenship with D.C. statehood."