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November 4, 2005: NORTON WILL USE COMMUTER TAX TURN DOWN TO PRESS QUICK ACTION ON STRUCTURAL...

January 9, 2006

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 4, 2005

NORTON WILL USE COMMUTER TAX TURN DOWN TO PRESS QUICK ACTION ON STRUCTURAL IMBALANCE BILL

Washington, D.C. – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) issued the following statement regarding today’s decision in Banner v. United States of America.

“The 30 D.C. residents, D.C. Appleseed, the Mayor, and the Council deserve the gratitude of residents for attempting to gain equal citizenship in one more important way through this case for authority to impose a commuter tax. In pursuit of our rights, the federal courts keep sending the same message: Get statehood or get congressional action. Today’s decision should spur the Congress to meet its obligation to correct the city’s unique economic inequality by, at the very least, approving the Fair Federal Compensation Act (H.R. 1586), the pending structural imbalance payment bill, sponsored by Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis (R-VA), and me, and joined by all our Republican and Democratic regional House colleagues. The region’s opposition to a commuter tax was not unexpected. I am grateful to each of my regional House colleagues, however, for co-sponsoring our structural imbalance payment bill, and will ask them to help me in my efforts to get a hearing and passage this session. The region’s help on this bill would begin to make up for today’s disappointment.”