Norton to Make D.C. Emancipation Week Statehood Week on the House Floor

WASHINGTON, DC – Throughout next week, the last week Congress is in session before D.C. Emancipation Day, April 16, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) will offer remarks on the House floor as a part of the fight for statehood for the nearly 650,000 residents of the District of Columbia. D.C. Emancipation Day commemorates April 16, 1862, when President Abraham Lincoln freed 3,100 enslaved African Americans in the District. Norton will go to the floor on Tuesday and Thursday during morning debate at 10:00 a.m., and on Thursday afternoon, when extended time is permitted. She will use three different posters to point up how D.C. compares with the states in paying taxes and in service in the nation’s major wars, even though D.C. residents have no vote in the House or the Senate. One poster will show that the District has outpaced several states in casualties in the nation’s wars. Another will show that the District pays more in federal taxes than any state in the Union. A third poster will show that D.C. has a higher population than two states, which have representation in the House and the Senate. Norton expects that statehood and voting rights advocates will use the posters to spread the message throughout the city, including to visitors. Norton also will speak about the recently released United Nations Human Rights Committee report criticizing the U.S. government’s human rights compliance record and calling on the U.S. to grant equal congressional voting rights in the House and Senate to the residents of the District.

Working with the statehood coalition, Norton chose next week, prior to D.C. Emancipation Day, for statehood speeches and poster displays because, Norton said, “Emancipation Day is an ironic occasion in the District that calls us to complete the process of freedom for our city and its residents. D.C. residents were the first African Americans to be emancipated from slavery but, today, its citizens of every background are the last to be free and equal. More than 150 years after D.C. led in the emancipation of slaves, the residents of the District of Columbia 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. With our city still under the thumb of Congress, our recognition of Emancipation Day here in the District must fuel our indignation and determination to free ourselves and give full meaning to the term ‘emancipation’.”

With the addition of Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) earlier this month as a cosponsor to the Senate companion to Norton’s D.C. statehood bill, the top four Senate Democratic leaders have now cosponsored the statehood bill, including Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), a rare act for a Majority Leader. The Senate bill is sponsored by Senator Tom Carper (D-DE).

Norton, who believes that only statehood will fully emancipate the residents of D.C., says she is nevertheless encouraged by favorable home-rule developments. President Obama included language in his fiscal year 2015 budget that would grant the District budget and legislative autonomy, and had the strongest and most comprehensive call for local D.C. autonomy in a President’s budget ever. In addition, Norton got a District of Columbia shutdown-avoidance provision included in the fiscal year 2014 omnibus appropriations bill, allowing the city to spend its local funds and remain open in the event of a federal government shutdown in fiscal year 2015. The provision, for the first time ever, guarantees that D.C. will avoid a local government shutdown for an entire fiscal year. Particularly building the momentum for budget autonomy, no action has been taken to overturn the budget autonomy referendum approved by D.C. voters. Furthermore, the Senate Appropriations Committee included a budget autonomy provision in its committee-passed fiscal year 2014 D.C. Appropriations bill. Last year, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee passed Chairman Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) bill that has major elements of budget autonomy. He and Norton are working to perfect final language.

Published: April 4, 2014