Norton to House Floor This Evening for Votes to Protect Budget Autonomy and Eliminate BOP Subsistence Fees, Will Oppose RHNDA Rider

Rules Committee Blocks Norton Amendments to Strike Marijuana, Death with Dignity, and Abortion Riders

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today announced that Norton will speak on the House floor this evening on two of her amendments that were made in order by the House Rules Committee to the fiscal year 2018 appropriations bills—her amendment to strike the anti-home-rule rider that repeals the District of Columbia's budget autonomy referendum and her amendment to prohibit the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) from carrying out the law that requires individuals in halfway houses and on home confinement to pay a subsistence fee to offset the cost of being housed or supervised. D.C. Code felons are the only local felons housed by BOP and are subject to the fee when in halfway houses.

Norton will also speak on the floor to oppose Representative Gary Palmer's (R-AL) amendment to block D.C. from spending its local funds to enforce a local anti-discrimination law, the Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Act (RHNDA), which prohibits employers from discriminating against employees, their spouses and dependents based on their reproductive health decisions.

Norton said that she regretted that the Rules Committee did not make in order her amendments that would have struck three other anti-home-riders, even though the amendments complied with House rules, but she will carry this fight to the Senate. Norton's amendments would have struck riders that prohibit D.C. from spending its local funds on marijuana commercialization and on abortions for low-income women and repeal D.C.'s medical aid-in-dying law, the Death with Dignity Act (DWDA). The Rules Committee also prevented Norton from raising points of order on the House floor against the DWDA and budget autonomy provisions in bill, both of which violate the House rule prohibiting legislating on an appropriations bill.