Norton to Meet With DC Vote and NARAL In Advance of Efforts to Make D.C. Budget Bill Rider-Free

Norton to Meet With DC Vote and NARAL Tomorrow In Advance of Their Efforts to Make D.C Appropriations Bill Rider-Free

July 6, 2011

WASHINGTON, DC - As part of her effort to keep riders off the D.C. Appropriations bill, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) will speak to DC Vote supporters at their Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill breakfast tomorrow, July 7, at 9:00 a.m. at United Methodist Building, 100 Maryland Avenue NE. Following the breakfast, DC Vote and its supporters will visit House offices to urge them to keep the D.C. Appropriations bill free of additional riders. Norton will also meet with NARAL Pro-Choice America tomorrow, which will deliver to the 27 House Appropriations Committee members who voted against repealing the D.C. abortion ban a petition from their constituents calling on them to stop anti-choice attacks on women and anti-home-rule attacks. NARAL is part of a new coalition of 100 national and local organizations, which together have millions of members that are uniting to protect D.C.'s home rule. The House Appropriations Committee passed fiscal year 2012 D.C. Appropriations bill would prevent the District from spending local funds on abortion services for low-income women, which was included in the base bill, not added as an amendment in committee.

"This is the first time that such a large coalition has activated so many of its members to contact Members' districts in advance of the appropriations process to help us prevent intrusion on the city's home rule," said Norton. "So far, their emails, letters, and phone calls to House Appropriations Committee members have had the desired effect. No new riders were added in committee. However, we have every reason to believe that some Members will put aside the principle that democratic local control applies here, as it does to their own districts, and will seek to add riders to the D.C. Appropriations bill on the House floor. Action by our allies in Congress, who have the vote that we have been denied, remains essential to preserving home rule and a rider-free appropriations bill."

Since the 2011 budget deal, 73 arrests have been made of residents over violations of home rule that were agreed to by the administration and Congress, as well as the near shutdown of the D.C. government.