Norton Files Amendments to CR to Prevent Fiscal Sabotage of D.C.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – After House Republicans released a continuing resolution (CR) that omitted a longstanding provision that would allow D.C. to continue to spend under its local fiscal year (FY) 2025 budget, which would force D.C. to revert to spending under the FY 2024 local budget and lead to projected cuts of $1 billion, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) filed an amendment at the Rules Committee to again include the provision. The CR also omitted a provision Norton has gotten included since FY 2015 to exempt D.C. from a federal government shutdown, which Norton’s amendment would also correct. The Rules Committee meets at 4:00 p.m. today to consider amendments to the CR.

“With this bill, House Republicans have intentionally committed nothing short of fiscal sabotage against D.C.,” Norton said. “If enacted, the CR would effectively repeal D.C.’s local FY 25 budget and force the District to revert to spending under its FY 24 budget levels, with no input from D.C. residents or the officials they elected. 

“D.C. has not been treated as a federal agency for funding purposes in more than 20 years precisely because doing so can force dramatic overnight cuts to essential services, including police, sanitation, and schools. Cuts to these services would work against Republicans’ stated goal of improving public safety and order in D.C. More importantly, D.C. is not a federal agency. The omissions constitute a dramatic escalation in the Republican effort to undermine what small measure of democracy and autonomy the more than 700,000 residents of the nation’s capital currently have.

“The Revolutionary War was fought to give consent to the governed and to end taxation without representation. The Republican efforts towards a federal government takeover of D.C. run counter to this history. D.C.’s population is larger than that of two states, D.C. pays more federal taxes per capita than any state and more than 21 states overall. D.C. residents have fought and died in all this nation’s wars. We deserve statehood, the only measure that would bring D.C. equality with the states and fully protect D.C. residents from this type of disastrous congressional interference.”

Republicans have introduced bills in both chambers of Congress to repeal the Home Rule Act, which aim to abolish the D.C. Council and Mayor’s office, leaving D.C. to depend on members of Congress elected by other jurisdictions to run the District.

The House of Representatives passed the D.C. statehood bill in 2020, the first time in history either chamber of Congress had passed the bill. The House passed it again in 2021. When Norton reintroduced the statehood bill on the first day of this Congress, she did so with 159 original cosponsors, the most original cosponsors of any bill introduced that first day. The bill now has 179 cosponsors. The Senate version, introduced by Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), was introduced this Congress with 40 original cosponsors, and now has 41 cosponsors.

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