Norton to Speak at Launch of StatehoodDC.com Website

Norton to Speak at Launch of StatehoodDC.com Website

November 7, 2011

WASHINGTON, DC -- Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) on Tuesday will speak at the official launch of a new website promoting D.C. statehood nationwide, www.StatehoodDC.com, at 10:30 a.m. at the John A. Wilson Building (1350 Pennsylvania Ave., NW). At the start of the current Congress, Norton re-introduced the first bill she filed after being elected to Congress, the New Columbia Admission Act, which would make the District the 51ststate. The bill received significant support in the House in 1993, in the only vote held by either house on statehood.

At the urging of D.C. residents, Norton also introduced two additional bills this session that have received majority support from residents, the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act (DCURA) and the District of Columbia Equal Representation Act, providing different approaches to congressional representation and full democracy for the more than 600,000 citizens of the District of Columbia, who pay federal taxes but do not have full voting representation in Congress. The city waged an almost successful campaign for the DCURA last Congress, which would have given the city a House vote. The bill had both Senate and House majority support, but it was derailed near the end by a dangerous gun amendment. Residents earlier supported the District of Columbia Equal Representation Act, authorizing Senate and House seats for D.C.

Norton introduced the three bills after the gun amendment killed the House vote and after holding Community Conversations in all eight wards to get the sentiment of residents on how to proceed.

"Residents have been as steadfast in their support for statehood as they have been for their right to full citizenship equal in every respect to other Americans," Norton said. "They have refused to sit on their hands when other opportunities present themselves, but residents will never settle for less than statehood." Most of Norton's service in Congress has been with Republicans in control of the House, as they are today.

Norton said that she introduced these three bills at the same time to deliver a direct message to Republicans in Congress of no retreat and to continue the momentum achieved here and throughout the country during the past few years, when residents used these bills as rallying points to press for their rights. In her introductory statement in January, Norton said, "In introducing these bills, we lay down a marker of our determination to never relent or retreat until we have obtained each and every right to which we are entitled, whether through the frustration and anguish of the incrementalism that Congress has always forced upon us or with the full and complete set of rights, which would be achieved through statehood. We accept no imposed limit on our equal rights as American citizens, and we will pursue them all until the day when there is no difference in citizenship between residents of the District of Columbia and other American citizens."