Norton to Speak on House Floor Tuesday to Support Final Step to Bring D.C.’s Douglass Statue to the Capitol

WASHINGTON, DC – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) will speak on the House floor tomorrow, Tuesday, May 21, 2013, during consideration of a resolution (S.Con.Res.16) authorizing the use of Emancipation Hall on Wednesday, June 19, 2013, to unveil the District of Columbia's Frederick Douglass statue. The House will take up the resolution, passed last week by the Senate, tomorrow mid-to-late afternoon under suspension of the rules. House passage of the resolution will mark the final step in a long-fought effort to allow the District of Columbia, like the states, to have its own statue in the Capitol.

"I am grateful to Chair Candice Miller for her help in bringing this resolution to the floor and to Ranking Member Robert Brady for his longstanding commitment to placing a D.C. statue in the Capitol," said Norton. "Frederick Douglass is one of the great international icons of human rights, but D.C. residents chose his statue to represent our city in the Capitol because of the boundless energy he dedicated to the right of D.C. residents to democratic self-government and congressional representation."

Last Congress, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), chairman of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, sponsored a stand-alone bill authorizing the move of the Douglass statue to the Capitol. The House companion to Schumer's bill, sponsored by former Representative Dan Lungren (R-CA), then-chairman of the Committee on House Administration, and co-sponsored by Norton, was signed into law by President Obama on September 20, 2012. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), then-chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government, earlier had included a provision in the fiscal year 2013 appropriations bill, approved by the full committee, authorizing the move of the Douglass statue, but the bill was not considered on the Senate floor.

Published: May 20, 2013