Norton Urges President to Not Allow D.C. to Be Used as Bargaining Chip in CR Negotiations
Norton Urges President to Not Allow D.C. to Be Used as Bargaining Chip in CR Negotiations
March 29, 2011
WASHINGTON, DC -- The Office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today released a letter Norton wrote to President Barack Obama asking him not to allow the District of Columbia to be used as a bargaining chip in ongoing negotiations on the continuing resolution (CR). The House-passed year-long CR (H.R. 1) contains harmful anti-home-rule riders to ban the District from using its local taxpayer-raised funds for abortions for low-income women and for needle-exchange programs, and reestablishes the failed D.C. voucher program.
Norton thanked the President for holding fast so far on riders in the CR. However, she wrote, "Recent media reports indicate that perhaps some D.C. riders may have emerged as bargaining chips in the CR negotiations, with some mentioning a prohibition on the use of the city's local funds for abortions for low income women in particular. If any D.C. riders are included in the CR, that acquiescence by Democrats will make it nearly impossible to argue that they should be kept out of the fiscal year 2012 and fiscal year 2013 spending bills."
Since the budget battle began this year, the Congresswoman has attempted to amend each of the short-term CRs to allow the District to spend its local funds for the remainder of the fiscal year and to thwart Republican attempts to re-impose the D.C. riders that Norton got removed in previous Congresses.
Norton's full letter follows.
--
Dear President Obama:
Thank you for your continuing support of the residents of the District of Columbia. Last Congress, with your leadership, we passed a D.C. appropriations bill that was free of anti-home-rule riders for the first time in memory. Your leadership is needed now more than ever to prevent House Republicans from undoing this historic achievement in the continuing resolution (CR), which would have grave consequences for the District during the rest of the 112th Congress.
We appreciate the public position the administration has taken against the inclusion of any riders in the CR. However, recent media reports indicate that perhaps some D.C. riders may have emerged as bargaining chips in the CR negotiations, with some mentioning a prohibition on the use of the city's local funds for abortions for low-income women in particular. If any D.C. riders are included in the CR, that acquiescence by Democrats will make it nearly impossible to argue that they should be kept out of the fiscal year 2012 and fiscal year 2013 spending bills.
H.R. 1, the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, re-imposes the bans on the District's use of its local taxpayer raised-funds for abortions for low-income women and for needle-exchange programs, and reestablishes the failed D.C. voucher program. Not only do the spending bans violate the District's right to self-government; they have seriously harmed our residents. It would be unacceptable to use the District's low income women as a bargaining chip at a time when women's rights advocates and the District have been particularly focused on protecting the city from a return to this restriction. Allowing prohibition on using the city's own funds to give choice to low-income women would send the wrong signal from Democrats on a pending bill, H.R. 3, that goes even further by writing this restriction into permanent law. To reimposition of the D.C. syringe exchange ban, the reason that the District has the highest HIV/AIDS rate in the country, would show a serious disregard for public health in the District. In addition, the D.C. voucher rider, violates the District's home-rule prerogatives, restarts a failed educational experiment, and undermines the compromise that last Congress you and the Democratic Congress agreed to allow the currently enrolled voucher students to remain in the program until graduation.
District residents, women's rights advocates and the entire civil rights community worked too hard to remove all D.C. riders while Democrats controlled Congress to have their efforts immediately turned around at the insistence of House Republicans. Furthermore, these riders are only one element of the systematic effort by House Republicans to undermine the District's right to self-government, which began on day one of the new Congress when they took away our vote in the Committee of the Whole. If the administration and congressional Democrats do not keep the anti-home-rule riders out of the CR, it will only embolden House Republicans to escalate their attacks on the District. Please do not allow the District's home-rule rights to be bargained away.
Sincerely,
Eleanor Holmes Norton