Norton Welcomes Attention From Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization to the District

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) issued the following statement after the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) announced today that it would welcome the District of Columbia as a member of the organization.

"Congratulations to our D.C. statehood delegation, led by D.C. Shadow Senator Paul Strauss, in getting UNPO to accept the District as its newest member at the organization's session this past week in Brussels, Belgium. I recognize that some of UNPO's members are ethnic groups or territories that present different kinds of abuse than we usually discuss in the District, but the fact that we are among strange bedfellows only points up the recognition that the denial of democracy takes many forms. We need more actions like those taken by the statehood delegation and Senator Strauss, who traveled to Brussels, in order to raise the national and international profile of the District's fight for statehood, including full representation in our own Congress. Senator Strauss has also informed my office that he showed the HBO Last Week Tonight with John Oliver segment on D.C. statehood, in which Oliver makes fun of Congress for denying D.C. equal rights, at the UNPO session, and that the world-class HBO segment increased UNPO's understanding of the District's status. On Tuesday, November 17, at 3:00 p.m. in 2253 Rayburn House Office Building, we are holding a Capitol Hill D.C. statehood briefing featuring the HBO segment and constitutional expert Viet Dinh, who served as U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy under President George W. Bush, followed by a discussion on the best ways to make continued use of the HBO segment to increase knowledge of the District's undemocratic status.

"The statehood delegation's effort in Brussels adds to the extraordinary work of Tim Cooper, a D.C. resident who traveled to Geneva, Switzerland in 2006 to testify at the United Nations Human Rights Committee on D.C.'s lack of representation, and, as a result, this very important committee has twice formally criticized the U.S. government for failing to grant D.C. residents equal congressional voting rights in the House and Senate.

"The District's problem with statehood does not begin within Congress, where there is currently insufficient pressure to change the status quo. The problem is with our fellow citizens in the states and others across the world, who have not been adequately educated about the District's unequal status. In Congress, a record number of Democrats have signed on to our statehood bill in the House and Senate. As important as that effort is, it pales beside the outside pressure we need to put on Congress, which comes from citizen action and organizing, such as Senator Strauss' trip to Brussels."