Norton to Defend D.C.’s Budget Autonomy Referendum at OGR Hearing, Next Thursday
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said she will vigorously defend the budget autonomy referendum approved by District of Columbia voters in 2013 from congressional interference at a Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Government Operations hearing scheduled for Thursday, May 12, 2016, at 2:00 p.m., in 2154 Rayburn House Office Building. Norton has successfully protected D.C.’s budget autonomy referendum from congressional interference since it was passed by voters in 2013.
“Following the D.C. Superior Court’s historic home-rule decision upholding D.C.’s budget autonomy referendum, with no appeal pending, D.C. budget autonomy is now settled law and the law of the land,” Norton said. “The D.C. budget autonomy referendum, which passed with 83% of the vote, followed all of the prescribed rules of the Congress and the District of Columbia. Congress does not control local funds of any state, locality, or U.S. territory. At least in the 21st century, there is no case to be made that Congress should control the locally raised revenue of any jurisdiction in the United States.”