Norton Says Today’s Hearing Made the Case for D.C. Statehood

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said today's Committee on Oversight and Reform (COR) hearing on her District of Columbia statehood bill (H.R. 51) made the case for the bill, including satisfactorily answering the many constitutional, technical, ideological, and philosophical questions. The witnesses included D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, Interim D.C. Chief Financial Officer Dr. Fitzroy Lee, Congressional Research Service Legislative Attorney Mainon Schwartz, D.C. veteran Harry Wingo, and Interim President and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights Wade Henderson. Norton said she appreciated the testimony from all of today's witnesses.

"I believe that any objective observer would find that today's hearing made the case for my D.C. statehood bill, despite many questions from Republican members seeking to undermine the constitutionality of the bill and the readiness of D.C. for statehood," Norton said.

"The significance of today's hearing, first and foremost, is for the residents of the nation's capital, who have worked for 220 years for this imprimatur, which provides the only path to all of the elements of full citizenship. The last hearing had the important effect of informing Americans about the lack of rights of the people who live in their own nation's capital. I can only predict that public support for D.C. statehood, which we saw increase to 54% after the House hearing, markup and passage of the bill last Congress, will continue to grow after today's hearing."