Norton Sees Passage of Legislative Autonomy - March 09, 2006

NORTON SEES PASSAGE OF LEGISLATIVE AUTONOMY
BECAUSE OF CONGRESSIONAL DISUSE OF LAYOVER REQUIREMENT
March 9, 2006

Washington, DC--Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today introduced the District of Columbia Legislative Autonomy Act of 2006, the second in a series of “Free and Equal D.C.” bills to remove the remaining congressional statutes that impose discriminatory and unequal treatment on the District (Norton hopes to get enactment this year of the fraternal twin of today’s bill, the first bill in the Free and Equal D.C. series, H.R. 1629, the D.C. Budget Autonomy Act of 2005, sponsored by Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis and Norton.) The Legislative Autonomy Act would eliminate the congressional review or layover period for civil and criminal District acts of 30 days and 60 days respectively, which usually means many months of harmful delay before a D.C. bill becomes law because only the days when both houses of Congress are in session apply. Although Norton has introduced legislative autonomy bills before, she believes that the chances for passage have improved markedly because Congress itself no longer uses the layover process. “Congressional layover long ago died from obsolescence,” she said.

The hold on all D.C. bills forces the City Council to pass legislation using a cumbersome and complicated emergency, temporary, and permanent process to ensure no gap in criminal and civil laws. The Legislative Autonomy bill would eliminate this Byzantine process that often requires a two-thirds supermajority even for ordinary legislation.

Instead of formally filing “resolutions of disapproval” of D.C. bills requiring the normal, slow processing in the House and the Senate, both houses now use more rapid and efficient processes, particularly appropriations bills or attachments to other bills. “I don’t like any of the processes that overturn D.C. legislation, but I know a congressional corpse when I see one, and the formal layover process for D.C. bills has died from disuse,” Norton said. “Nevertheless, in what amounts to costly inefficiency, the play-acting continues to be forced upon the D.C. Council as if the layover system were still alive and kicking. If layover is gone in the Congress, it should be gone in the Council.”

Norton said the current process was never necessary because Congress can always intervene into District affairs using its Article I, Section 8 constitutional authority over the nation’s capital. The present law is particularly obsolete, she said, considering that of over 2,000 council-passed acts, only three have been overturned by the Congress, two involved a distinct federal interest, and only 43 acts have been challenged at all using the traditional process in the 32 years of home rule. Holds on 2,000 bills have meant “untold costs in money and time and staff to both the District and the Congress,” Norton said. “Congress rarely but occasionally acts on D.C. bills, but it no longer acts using the disapproval process,” Norton said. “The time has come to give the layover process a decent burial.”

Today’s bill does not prevent review of District laws by Congress. The House Government Reform Committee and the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee could scrutinize D.C. bills, if desired, and Congress could change or strike legislation. “My bill simply responds to Congress, bowing to the more rapid approaches Congress itself now uses by eliminating the automatic hold that seriously restricts the Council in performing its primary function and requires close monitoring and analysis to avoid nullifying a bill for failure to follow the letter of the layover requirement. Congress has been reluctant to afford D.C. the full autonomy it deserves,” Norton said. “Having made its own processes more efficient, however, the time has come to do the same for the District.”

Click here to see more details on the Legislative Autonomy bill in Norton's statement of introduction.