Norton Testifies at Rules Committee Today in Final Effort to Remove Anti-Home-Rule Riders

Norton Testifies at Rules Committee Today in Final Effort to Remove Anti-Home-Rule Riders from 2011 Spending Bill

April 12, 2011

WASHINGTON, DC -- Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) testified and offered three amendments toH.R. 1473 (the Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Resolution Appropriations Act, 2011) today during the House Rules Committee hearing on the bill. The bill would prevent the District of Columbia from spending its own local funds on abortions for low-income women. It also includes Speaker John Boehner's (R-OH) D.C. private school vouchers bill, which funds the program for five more years, despite the official final report finding "no conclusive evidence that [the program] affected student achievement," as measured by standardized math and reading tests.

Norton's first amendment would strike from the bill the anti-home-rule provision prohibiting the District from spending its own local taxpayer-raised funds on abortions for low-income women. Norton's second amendment, the same one she offered on the House floor during consideration of the D.C. voucher bill, H.R. 471, would redirect the D.C. private school voucher funding to the D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) and the District of Columbia's home-rule alternative, the D.C. public charter schools. Norton's third amendment would redirect the increased fiscal year 2011 funding for the D.C. voucher program to the D.C. public charter schools.

In her statement, Norton said, "I am back before your committee for the fourth time in little more than a month-and for the second time in less than a week-to defend the District of Columbia's right to self-government . . . . This Congress may not have heard my pleas to respect home rule, but you have now heard from District residents. Yesterday, hundreds of D.C. residents protested, led by Mayor Vincent Gray and six D.C. council members, forty one of whom were arrested after they blocked traffic on Constitution Avenue. This is the response that Americans would expect when Congress tries to invade the local self-governing authority of any U.S. jurisdiction . . . . All I ask is that you treat my constituents with the respect you demand for your own residents. If you do, you will not support legislation that strips the power of a local government to spend its own money and determine its own policies."

The full Norton statement follows.

I am back before your committee for the fourth time in a little more than a month--and for the second time in less than a week--to defend the District of Columbia's right to self-government. Last Friday represented the biggest setback for the District's autonomy in fifteen years. Not only was the District government minutes away from shutting down, because this committee would not approve my amendments to allow the District to spend its own taxpayer-raised funds for the rest of fiscal year 2011, but the budget deal was struck by throwing District residents under the bus. This Congress may not have heard my pleas to respect home rule, but you have now heard from District residents. Yesterday, hundreds of D.C. residents, led by Mayor Vincent Gray, six D.C. council members and DC Vote, protested the budget deal outside the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Forty-one D.C. residents, including Mayor Gray and the council members, were arrested after they blocked traffic on Constitution Avenue. This is a response that Americans would expect when Congress tries to invade the local self-governing authority of any U.S. jurisdiction.

As with the one-week continuing resolution the House passed last Thursday, the policy riders in this bill are targeted at the 600,000 American citizens in the District and non-citizen detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The bill would prohibit only one jurisdiction, the District of Columbia, from spending its own local funds on abortions for low-income women. I had thought that the House majority supported reducing the power of federal government over state and local governments, not expanding it. However, when I offered an amendment to H.R. 1363, the Department of Defense and Further Additional Continuing Appropriations Act of 2011, to maintain the status quo and allow the District to spend its local funds on abortions for low-income women, it was refused. I must ask this committee to reconsider and adopt my amendment to allow the District to spend its own local funds on abortions for poor women in the District.

The bill also establishes a new D.C. private school voucher program, a quintessentially local decision about our children's education. Remarkably, Democrats gave Republicans even more than they asked for in the House-passed H.R. 1, the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011. The bill also violates House Rules by legislating on an appropriations bill. The bill reauthorizes the D.C. voucher program for five years, instead of the one-year reauthorization in H.R. 1. While Republicans still seek to cut billions of dollars from public education across the country, the majority is spending $100 million on a congressionally-imposed private school voucher program in the District of Columbia, which, as official studies have demonstrated, has failed to improve academic achievement. One of my voucher amendments, which this committee made in order during consideration of H.R. 471, the Scholarships for Opportunity and Results Act, would eliminate the reauthorization of the voucher program and instead redirect the funding, equally divided, between the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) and District of Columbia public charter schools. DCPS has significantly improved in recent years, and student performance is comparable to other large urban school districts, and often better. DCPS 4th and 8th grade students were the only students in these districts to show significant improvement in the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the Nation's Report Card. District of Columbia public charter schools, which have been created by local parents and organizations, provide publicly accountable educational alternatives for students and parents in the District. Thirty-eight percent of District of Columbia public school students attend public charter schools, and many others are on waiting lists for admission. Unlike voucher students, District of Columbia public charter school students significantly outperform DCPS students, with charter middle and high school students scoring almost twice as high on standardized math and reading tests as DCPS students. My other D.C. voucher amendment would uphold the agreement Democrats agreed to last Congress to allow current voucher students to remain in the program until graduation, but to not admit new students. The amendment would also redirect the $2.3 million increase in D.C. voucher funding in fiscal year 2011 to D.C. public charter schools.

Unfortunately, I do not believe that this will be the last time I will have to appear before this committee to defend my constituents' right to local self-government. For the first time this Congress, the House majority is not solely responsible for the attacks on the District in the bill. Senate Democrats and the Obama administration share some of the responsibility for the harm done to the District in the bill by bowing to Republican demands. District residents are not bargaining chips. All I ask is that you treat my constituents with the respect you demand for your own residents. If you do, you will not support legislation that strips the power of a local government to spend its own money and determine its policies.