Norton Says Unprecedented Arrests of Residents Signals New Determination to Protect D.C.'s Home Rule
Norton Says Unprecedented Arrests of Residents at the White House Signals New Determination Without Immunity to Protect and Advance the District's Home Rule
June 25, 2011
Washington, D.C. - Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said today that the dozen residents who were arrested for sitting down in front of the White House shows that the District is holding both the administration and the Congress accountable for violations of home rule like the 2011 budget deal riders. Norton, who spoke at the DC Vote rally at the White House, said "Thousands of people from throughout the country and from all over the world saw unprecedented civil disobedience by residents of the nation's capital provoked by second-class treatment by their national government." The rally and civil disobedience came as the appropriation season has started and, Norton said, the people have acted before more danger is done to the city's home rule. The D.C. appropriation is scheduled to go to the floor in July. "We will not surrender any part of the home rule it took us 128 years too long to get," she said at the rally. The Congresswoman said that today's demonstration shows that the new D.C. democracy movement has spread to average citizens of every race and age, and that the hundreds of residents who came to today's DC Vote rally indicate the movement's sustainability.
"Every branch of this government has been implicated in our treatment as second-class citizens" Norton said. "We are outraged that at a time when this rally should be about the vote and statehood, we are forced to defend the simple right of every American and of every local jurisdiction to pass any law and especially to spend any funds we raise any way we choose."
The Congresswoman said that the residents who were arrested have set a "unique and particularly courageous example" that sends an especially strong message about the city's demands for the upcoming appropriation. Since the 2011 budget deal, 73 arrests have been made of residents over violations of home rule agreed to by the administration and the Congress and the near shutdown of the D.C. government.