Norton Working with Senate Allies & Obama Administration to Remove Anti-Home-Rule Riders from CR
Norton Working with Senate Allies and Obama Administration to Remove Anti-Home-Rule Riders from Continuing Resolution Passed by House this Morning
February 19, 2011
WASHINGTON, DC -- With the virtually inevitable House passage this morning of the full-year fiscal year 2011 continuing resolution (CR), Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) is already at work with her Senate allies and the Obama administration to remove the anti-home-rule riders the House Republican majority included in their bill. The CR re-imposes two of the anti-home-rule riders Norton got removed in recent years--the bans on spending D.C. taxpayer-raised funds on needle exchange programs and on abortions for low-income women--and it establishes a new D.C. private school voucher program. The CR also eliminates funding for Metro's safety improvements.
The CR, which would fund federal programs for the rest of the fiscal year, "is replete with substantial cuts to the small domestic part of the U.S. budget that the average American relies on," the Congresswoman said, citing education and the defunding of the recently passed health care reform law. However, "The House bill is only the first round in the CR process. I have been rounding up Senate allies who, along with the Obama administration, are committed to preserving D.C.'s home-rule rights and dignity as a local jurisdiction." The District's modest federal funding was mostly spared. The CR maintains the $35 million for Norton's D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant program, especially important to avoid disruption to the education of thousands of D.C. college students whose tuition is being funded by the program.
Since the start of the new Congress, the House Republican majority, which won control on the issue of jobs but has introduced no jobs bills, has been quick to impose its policy preferences on the District by stripping residents of their Committee of the Whole vote, reintroducing the National Rifle Association-backed D.C. gun bill, introducing stand-alone bills to re-impose private school vouchers and to prohibit the use of local funds for abortions for low-income residents, and now re-imposing the abortion, needle exchange and voucher riders in the CR. Two weeks ago, a House Judiciary subcommittee denied Norton's request to testify at a hearing about the D.C. abortion funding ban.
The Congresswoman said she expects the House Republican majority to continue the pattern it has set of trying to dictate policy to District residents and the District government. Even with little chance of reversing this early trend in the House, Norton has strongly opposed the majority's autocratic use of congressional power. She said that strong opposition as these issues pass through the House is necessary to ensure Senate and administration action in behalf of the city. Norton said she also was grateful for the new initiatives of DC Vote in organizing residents to engage in peaceful protest action, which alerts the nation to Republicans' anti-democratic treatment of the residents of the District and their local government.