Norton Thanks Pelosi for Championing D.C. Statehood, Home Rule, and Equality

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today thanked Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for championing District of Columbia statehood, home rule, and equality, after Pelosi announced she would not seek election for Democratic Leader next Congress.

“Speaker Pelosi is the most important and effective member of the House in history,” Norton said. “What I will always remember her for, though, is that no Speaker or Minority Leader has ever fought harder to give D.C. residents voting representation in Congress or full home rule or to ensure D.C. is treated like a state in all respects. As she has said publicly many times, these issues are in her blood, given her father’s work in Congress, and she has fought both publicly and behind the scenes on behalf of D.C. residents.”

During Pelosi’s tenure as Speaker, the House twice passed Norton’s D.C. statehood bill, which are the only times either chamber of Congress has ever passed the D.C. statehood bill, the House passed Norton’s D.C. House Voting Rights Act, which would have given D.C. voting representation in the House, and the House passed several Norton bills to expand D.C. home rule, including twice this Congress to give D.C. control over the D.C. National Guard. Pelosi also fought countless Republican attempts to repeal, block, or impose D.C. laws, brought D.C.’s second statue to the Capitol this year, giving D.C. two statues in the Capitol like each state, and ensured D.C. was made whole in the American Rescue Plan for the $755 million D.C. was shortchanged in the Republican-drafted CARES Act, which treated D.C. as a territory instead of a state for coronavirus fiscal relief, even though D.C. pays the same taxes as states.

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