Norton to Round Off Week’s Call for D.C. Statehood in Advance of D.C. Emancipation Day, Will Focus on UN Human Rights Committee Report Call for D.C. Voting Rights

WASHINGTON, DC – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), in advance of D.C. Emancipation Day, April 16, today, around 12:00 p.m., will make her third and final House floor speech of the week to call 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. Today, in her remarks, using posters on the House floor, Norton will focus on the recently released United Nations (UN) Human Rights Committee report on the United States 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. The Congresswoman also will highlight the District’s population, which is larger than that of two states, despite being the only jurisdiction in the country without a vote in the House and no Senators. 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.

“This year’s report was the second time the UN Human Rights Committee has said the denial of the rights of D.C. residents is a human rights violation under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights treaty, which the U.S. ratified in 1992,” said Norton. “Even 150 years after D.C. led in the emancipation of slaves, no other country limits the rights of citizens because they happen to live in their nation’s capital. The UN report reminds us that D.C. Emancipation Day is not simply a holiday off from work to remember the emancipation of the District’s slaves by President Lincoln. It is a day for residents to continue to emancipate themselves.”

Norton is going to the floor for statehood this week because it is the last week Congress is in session before D.C. Emancipation Day. On Wednesday, Norton also spoke on the floor as part of the fight for statehood and focused on official government figures that show the District has outpaced many states in casualties in the nation’s wars. A video of her remarks can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owChdSKiox4&feature=youtu.be. On Tuesday, she spoke as well, with a focus on the fact that D.C. pays more in federal taxes per capita than any state in the Union. The video of her remarks can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXPlp395cpc&feature=youtu.be.

Published: April 10, 2014