Norton Releases Statement, Thanks Supporters, As New Coronavirus Bill Short on Missing Funding, Gives DC Equal Funding

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) released the statement below saying that she was encouraged that the District of Columbia got equal funding with the states in the coronavirus response bill passed by the Senate today. She also indicated why she believes the new bill did not include D.C. funds, left out of the third coronavirus stimulus package, which treated the District as a territory instead of a state for funding purposes, as is usually the case, depriving the District of $750 million.

Norton said that the bill passed today, unlike the third bill, does not discriminate against the District and will help both small businesses and workers, and will provide more testing and personal protective gear for frontline workers in the District, putting the District back on full and equal funding."

"Although the bill announced today fails to include funds shorted the District in the last bill, written by the Senate," Norton said, "I am not discouraged. Today's bill had no funds whatsoever for any state and local governments, which made it difficult to include the funds due one local jurisdiction, however unjustly the District had been treated. In fact, I am encouraged by the outpouring of support from Members of the House and Senate and D.C. regional businesses, who have spoken up on our behalf. Their support increases my determination to retrieve the funds we lost and boosts us to ultimate success."

In March, Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) made an impassioned speech on the Senate floor criticizing the Senate's denial of funds for the District. Shortly after, Van Hollen and Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) sent a letter, signed by 25 senators, to Senate leadership asking that D.C. be made whole in an upcoming coronavirus bill. In early April, Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD) led a letter signed by 97 other House members, almost half the Democrats in the House, calling on House leadership to retroactively fix coronavirus funding for the District. Yesterday, April 20, 250 members of the D.C. region business community wrote congressional leadership expressing concern that the District did not get full coronavirus funding when it was needed most and asked that any future legislation make the District whole. On April 14, 102 national and local organizations senate a letter calling on Congress to retroactively fix the treatment of the District as a territory rather than a state in the next coronavirus bill.

Congresswoman Norton is available for Skype, Zoom, and telephone interviews on request.

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