Norton Vows Again to Keep D.C. Anti-Discrimination Laws Intact After Heritage Foundation Calls on Congress to Block Them

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today said she will once again vigorously defend two District of Columbia anti-discrimination laws from being overturned after the Heritage Foundation’s fiscal year 2017 budget blueprint for Congress, released today, calls for the Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Act (RHNDA) and the Human Rights Amendment Act (HRAA) to blocked or overturned. Last year, Norton successfully kept a rider out of the fiscal year 2016 omnibus appropriations bill that would have prohibited D.C. from using its local funds to enforce RHNDA after the House Appropriations Committee approved such a provision. The House also voted to overturn RHNDA through a disapproval resolution last year, the first such vote to overturn a D.C. law in almost 25 years, but the resolution died in the Senate. RHNDA bars discrimination against employees, their spouses and dependents based on their reproductive health decisions, including not only abortion, but also in vitro fertilization. Norton prevented disapproval resolutions that were introduced to overturn HRAA from moving in the House or Senate. HRAA repealed a congressionally imposed rider that permitted schools in D.C. to deny LGBT students equal access to school facilities and services based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

“We will not allow the Heritage Foundation and its far-right conservative allies to trample on our jurisdiction’s local democratic rights and put thousands of our employees and students at risk of discrimination,” Norton said. “Heritage and their allies proclaim principles of liberty and local autonomy daily, and then in a heartbeat turn on these same principles as they try to deny nearly 700,000 Americans living in the District the same rights that apply to all other American citizens. We worked last year with a broad coalition of local and national organizations to defend D.C.’s local anti-discrimination laws from congressional interference, and we will do the same again this year.”