Norton Thanks Hoyer for Cosponsoring D.C. Statehood Bill, Longtime Champion of D.C. Voting Rights

Washington, D.C.—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) expressed her special appreciation to her good friend, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), for his forceful and eloquent Washington Post op-ed today endorsing statehood for the District of Columbia, where he also announced he would cosponsor Norton's D.C. statehood bill (H.R. 51). The House Oversight and Reform Committee will hold a hearing on the bill on July 24, 2019, the first House hearing on D.C. statehood since Norton achieved one in 1993.

"I am grateful to my good friend Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who has always been a good friend of the District, for cosponsoring our D.C. statehood bill," Norton said. "We have made unprecedented progress on D.C. statehood in the first six months of this Congress, but Leader Hoyer's cosponsorship is particularly important because he sets the House floor schedule. No Member of Congress worked more closely with me or fought harder to pass a bill to grant D.C. a House vote in 2007 through 2010 than Leader Hoyer. Unfortunately, that bill was derailed by an amendment backed by the National Rifle Association that would have eliminated D.C.'s gun violence prevention laws. With statehood, not only will D.C. have full voting rights in Congress, Congress will no longer have control over D.C.'s local affairs."

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Norton has built historic support for her D.C. statehood bill this year. In March, the House passed H.R. 1, the For the People Act, which contained extensive findings supporting D.C. statehood and marked the first time in American history either chamber of Congress has endorsed D.C. statehood; Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) strongly endorsed D.C. statehood upon introduction of Norton's D.C. statehood bill; Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) unveiled a sweeping proposal to combat voter disenfranchisement, including restoring the Voting Rights Act, establishing national, automatic voter registration laws, and supporting D.C. statehood; and Congressman Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, announced that the committee will hold a hearing (July 24) and markup on the statehood bill this year, the first House hearing or markup on a D.C. statehood bill since 1993.

Norton's bill has a record number of cosponsors in the House (205) and Senate (32). The Senate companion is sponsored by Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) and the bill has been endorsed by a record number of national organizations (45).

The groups that have endorsed the D.C. statehood bill are: ACLU; ACLU-DC; AFGE, AFL-CIO; AIDS United; Americans for Democratic Action; Bend the Arc; Brady; Campaign Legal Center; Catholics for Choice; Center for Biological Diversity; Coalition to Stop Gun Violence; Common Cause; Conference of Major Superiors of Men; CREDO; DC Vote; Demand Justice; Demand Progress; Democracy 21; Demos; Friends Committee on National Legislation; Greater Washington Urban League; Human Rights Campaign; In Our Own Voice: National Black Women's Reproductive Justice Agenda; Indivisible; International Assoc. of Machinists & Aerospace Workers; Jews United for Justice; The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights; League of Women Voters; MomsRising; NAACP; NARAL Pro-Choice America; National Abortion Federation; National Action Network; National Active and Retired Federal Employees Assoc.; National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund; National Urban League; NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice; NORML; People for the American Way; Planned Parenthood Federation of America; Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington; Public Citizen; Sierra Club; Stand Up America; The Democratic Coalition; Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity (URGE); and United Food and Commercial Workers.