Norton to Kick Off Special Call for D.C. Statehood on House Floor in Advance of Emancipation Day, Today

WASHINGTON, DC – In advance of D.C. Emancipation Day, April 16, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today, Tuesday, April 8, 2014 at 10:00 a.m., will make her first of three trips this week to speak on the House floor to call for statehood for the nearly 650,000 residents of the District of Columbia. Norton is going to the floor for statehood this week because it is the last week Congress is in session before Emancipation Day. Today, as part of her remarks, she will focus on official government figures that show D.C. pays more in federal taxes per capita than any state in the Union – even though D.C. residents have no vote in the House and no Senators. Volunteers from DC Vote and Stand Up for Democracy in D.C. will be in the gallery in support of Norton’s efforts. D.C. Emancipation Day commemorates April 16, 1862, when President Abraham Lincoln freed 3,100 enslaved African Americans in the District. Norton’s floor speech can be viewed live on television on C-SPAN or online at https://www.c-span.org/live/?channel=c-span.

“I am going to the House floor to protest our status as the last to enjoy full equality and freedom for our residents in their own country,” said Norton. “Rather than celebrating Emancipation Day in the District, it fuels our indignation and determination to free ourselves and give full meaning to the term ‘emancipation’. I will remind the country that our residents fulfill all obligations of American citizenship – particularly paying federal taxes and serving in all the nation’s wars – but are still without the fundamental rights enjoyed by other American citizens – representation in Congress, budget and legislative autonomy, and freedom from interference from the Congress in its local affairs. Not only will I point up this injustice to Congress, but I also will call on our residents themselves to heighten their volume and efforts in the fight for the basic rights they are denied more than 150 years after D.C. led in the emancipation of slaves.”

Norton will also go to the floor on Wednesday during morning debate at 10:00 a.m., and on Thursday afternoon.

Published: April 8, 2014