Norton Says 8 D.C. Residents Arrested in Support of Budget Autonomy Show Sustainability in Movement

Norton Says Eight D.C. Residents Arrested Wednesday in Support of Budget Autonomy Show Sustainability in D.C. Rights Movement

May 12, 2011

WASHINGTON, DC - Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) this evening applauded eight D.C. residents from labor and civil rights organizations, who were arrested at a rally, and the residents who cheered them on. Rally-goers, organized by the voting rights organization, DC Vote, spoke out for D.C. budget autonomy and protested the Oversight and Government Reform D.C. Subcommittee hearing on Mayor Vincent Gray's 2012 budget, scheduled for 8:45 a.m. in 2154 Rayburn HOB, Thursday, May 12. All week residents and the local press have viewed with skepticism a hearing by a committee that never has budget hearings, which is the direct jurisdiction of the appropriations committee, particularly considering that the Mayor's budget plan is now under review by the D.C. Council and there is no D.C. budget as yet.

"Since the arrests of ‘DC 41,' residents and elected officials have continued to engage in peaceful protests," said Norton. "Residents are showing that the first rally and arrests, after D.C. was the object of attachments to the 2011 appropriations which violated home rule, would not be the last, and that they are in it for as long as House Republicans keep meddling with the business of an independent jurisdiction that is not their own."