Blog

The following appeared in the Huffington Post on July 2, 2014:

The D.C. post-20-week abortion ban bill marks the first time in United States history that a standalone bill has come to the floor to deny the residents of the Nation's Capital the same constitutional rights as other Americans. Those behind this bill have picked on the District to get a phony federal imprimatur on a bill that targets Roe v. Wade. In the process, they have picked a fight they do not want and cannot win with pro-choice America. Bills based on pain or principle would not target only one city that has no vote on the bill.

Cutting Amtrak's budget by 21 percent for operations and 34 percent for capital and debt service is one of the reasons the Republicans could not find Republican votes to pass their own fiscal year 2014 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations bill. Republicans created cuts that even Republicans could not stomach. No wonder this has brought a backlash within their own party against a pattern of deep cuts on top of the sequester this year.

I went to New York this week to accept a "Gloria Award" from Gloria Steinem, Letty Pogrebin and Pat Carbine, the founding mothers of the Ms. Foundation, as I serve in the Republican-led House, which couldn't less about women's concerns. This is all the more reason to be grateful to the Ms. Foundation for its determined focus on today's women.

(Congresswoman Norton's comments from the ceremony follow)

A new generation of young people of every race is demonstrating nonviolently to make sure that the larger meaning of the Michael Brown tragedy is not lost.

His death has become much more than a moment of anguish. Michael Brown has crystallized the painful experience that had found no outlet until now: the routine stops of Black men by police in the streets of our country because of the color of their skin.