Senate’s Rider-Free D.C. Appropriations Bill Shows Respect for D.C. Home Rule

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today said that the Senate Committee on Appropriations approved a fiscal year 2013 Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill with no anti-home-rule riders attached to the District of Columbia's local budget. Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL), chairman of the Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government, led the committee to achieve today's results. Norton thanked Sen. Durbin and Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI), chairman of the Appropriations Committee, for today's very good D.C. bill, achieved with little contention. Norton also thanked the coalition of more than 100 organizations that helped her fight to keep the bill free of riders that violate the city's self-governing authority. "The more than 100 member organizations sent House and Senate appropriators a clear message: keep your hands off the District's local budget," Norton said. "The House version of the bill has a rider preventing the District from spending its own local funds on abortion services for low-income women, which was embedded in the appropriations bill as introduced. We will fight vigorously, along with the coalition and our Senate allies, for a bill free of all anti-home-rule riders." The committee will make public more details on the funding in the bill soon.