Press Releases

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) announced that her bill, co-led by Congressman Scott Perry (R-PA), to direct the General Services Administration (GSA) to sell the Webster School in downtown D.C. for fair market value passed the House today by voice vote. The legislation would return the long-vacant Webster School building to productive use and was marked up by the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee in July.

WASHINGTON, D.C. –– Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) and Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) led Members of Congress in writing a letter to the State Department today to request a status update on the case of Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist who holds dual U.S. and Russian citizenship who has been unlawfully detained by Russia since October 18, 2023. Kurmasheva is an editor with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was detained after traveling to Russia for a family emergency.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today reintroduced a bill that would add the District of Columbia to the national empowerment zone program to provide federal tax incentives for businesses to locate and invest in low-income areas in the District. This bill would effectively restore many of the federal tax incentives for investment in low-income D.C. neighborhoods that a Norton bill created in 1997, but that Congress let expire in 2011. Norton's previous tax incentives bill produced significant investment in the District. Norton said that since Congress continues to extend the national empowerment zone program, D.C. neighborhoods that need the incentives should be able to participate in it.

WASHINGTON, D.C. –– Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today introduced a bill that requires federal agencies to include in their annual budget justifications the amount they spent on advertising contracts with small, disadvantaged businesses and businesses owned by women and minorities in the previous fiscal year, as well as projections of their spending for the upcoming fiscal year. Norton co-led a letter to President Biden with Reps. Hank Johnson (D-GA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), and Val Demings (D-FL) seeking answers about the inequity in federal advertising contracts awarded to media and advertising agencies owned by women and minorities as compared to the rest of the industry. A Government Accountability Office (GAO) study found that over a five-year period, the federal government spent more than $5 billion on advertising but Black-owned businesses received only $51 million, or 1.02 percent of those funds.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today introduced a bill to prohibit the Department of Defense (DoD) from recouping pay from federal civilian or District of Columbia employees who took encampment leave when mobilized by the D.C. National Guard (DCNG). DoD and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) have indicated these members should have had their civilian pay offset by their DCNG pay during encampment leave. Norton wrote DoD and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in July 2022 urging them not to try to recoup this pay and has long taken the position that DoD and OPM are misinterpreting the applicable law. Norton was able to get included in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 (NDAA) her amendment that effectively prohibited the DoD from recouping pay for encampment leave taken by DCNG members after the enactment of that NDAA, but that amendment did not apply to encampment leave taken before the 2022 NDAA’s enactment because of budget rules. Norton’s bill applies the same rule to the leave taken prior to the enactment of the 2022 NDAA, covering, for example, encampment leave taken during the DCNG’s COVID response.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) and Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) today introduced their bill to give the District of Columbia the same number of U.S. service academy nominations and appointments as states. Currently, each member of the House and Senate is allocated five appointments to each of the U.S. Military Academy, the U.S. Naval Academy, and the U.S. Air Force Academy, and is allowed to nominate 10 people for each appointment as it becomes vacant. However, because D.C. has no senators, the District is deprived of 10 appointments to each of these service academies.

WASHINGTON, D.C. –– Ahead of Veterans Day, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) introduced her annual resolution honoring D.C.’s veterans and current service members and their families, all who served their country and continue to serve without voting representation in Congress or complete home rule. The resolution condemns the denial of voting rights in Congress and full home rule for D.C. veterans and their families and calls for statehood for the District.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) released a statement after the Rules Committee yesterday made in order three anti-D.C. home rule amendments and did not make in order Norton’s amendments to the D.C. Appropriations bill that will soon be coming to the House floor. The Committee made in order an amendment by Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) to prohibit D.C. from using its local funds to require an individual to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, one filed by Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX) to prohibit D.C. from using its own local funds on signage to designate 16th Street Northwest as “Black Lives Matter Plaza,” and one filed by Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) to prohibit D.C. from using its local funds to carry out the section of D.C.’s Immunization of School Students At of 1979 that required students to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.  D.C. has already repealed this section.