Norton Says Final Defense Authorization Act Bill Contains Legislative Wins for D.C.

WASHINGTON, DC – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today said that she was pleased that the final fiscal year 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), released yesterday, contains two wins for the District of Columbia: a provision that re-designates Pershing Park as the World War I Memorial, laying to rest any possible nationalization of D.C.'s War Memorial, and, for the third-straight year, does not contain Representative Phil Gingrey's (R-GA) anti-home-rule gun amendment. The Gingrey amendment was passed as an amendment to the House's version of the bill earlier this year, expressing the sense of Congress that active duty military personnel in their private capacity should be exempt from the gun safety laws of the District of Columbia, but not elsewhere. Norton has fought the sense of Congress provision, even though it does not have the force of law, because it was a foot in the door, putting Congress on record in favor of weakening D.C.'s gun laws. This Congress, Rep. Gingrey introduced his amendment as a stand-alone bill as well, but it was not passed by the House. Rep. Gingrey lost his bid for the Senate and will be leaving Congress this year.

"Especially when it comes to public safety, Congress needs to get off of D.C.'s back," Norton said. "Whether it is Rep. Gingrey's ‘message provision' on guns or the more serious Rep. Massie amendment to wipe out several of D.C.'s gun laws, we can't allow Congress to ruin public safety and put our people in harm's way. Also, I appreciate that our friends in the Republican House and the Democratic Senate have agreed to the re-designation of Pershing Park as the World War I Memorial. Veterans of ‘the Great War' deserve and will have a war memorial of their own in the nation's capital without piggy-backing on D.C.'s WWI commemoration on the Mall. The D.C. War Memorial has come to symbolize all of this city's veterans, who went to war and came home without a vote and full equality in the union."

Norton is an original cosponsor of the Pershing Park re-designation bill, which was introduced by Congressmen Emmanuel Cleaver (D-MO) and Ted Poe (R-TX), which would re-designate Pershing Park, a federal park in the District of Columbia, as the "National World War I Memorial" and preserve the D.C. War Memorial for D.C. veterans only. Norton fought attempts to nationalize the D.C. War Memorial as the national World War I memorial, while also working to create a national World War I memorial in the District. Norton and her colleagues previously agreed that the D.C. War Memorial would remain dedicated exclusively to D.C. veterans, and that they would continue to work together to pursue a number of other options for a national World War I memorial in the District, and to re-designate the Liberty Memorial of Kansas City, Missouri as the "National World War I Museum and Memorial." The NDAA accomplishes those goals.