Press Releases
April 27, 2022
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) this week introduced a bill to clarify due process rights for federal employees serving in sensitive positions. Norton’s bill would overturn an unprecedented federal court decision, Kaplan v. Conyers and MSPB, that stripped federal employees who do not work on classified matters of the right to independent review of an agency decision removing them from jobs on grounds of ineligibility, preventing at least 200,000 federal workers who are designated as “noncritical sensitive” from appealing. Norton says the Kaplan decision undercuts the Civil Service Act, which ensures due process rights for federal workers, as required by the U.S. Constitution.
April 27, 2022
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) introduced her 100th bill this Congress and highlighted the legislative progress on the bills she has introduced.
April 26, 2022
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) spoke at the National Cannabis Festival last weekend, detailing how Congress’s power over the District of Columbia’s local affairs allowed Republicans to impose a rider prohibiting D.C. from spending its local funds on recreational marijuana commercialization. Norton noted her disappointment that, despite President Biden’s strong support for D.C. statehood, his budgets for fiscal years 2022 and 2023 proposed maintaining the rider. In addition, Norton discussed her bill that would allow marijuana in public housing in jurisdictions where marijuana is legal.
April 26, 2022
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Quiet Skies Caucus (QSC) Co-Chairs Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) and Congressman Stephen Lynch (D-MA) and Vice Chairs Congressman Mike Quigley (D-IL) and Congressman Tom Suozzi (D-NY) led QSC members in sending a letter to Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg requesting the addition of five community representatives to the NextGen Advisory Committee (NAC), which advises the Federal Aviation Administration, as part of NAC’s June 2022 charter renewal.
April 25, 2022
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) released a statement on the passing of former Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) over the weekend. Hatch coauthored the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act, which would have given D.C. permanent House voting representation and a temporary additional House seat for Utah, which narrowly missed getting a new House seat after the 2000 census.
April 25, 2022
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), chair of the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, will hold a subcommittee hearing titled “Examining Workforce Development and Job Creation in Surface Transportation Construction” on Wednesday, April 27th at 2:00 p.m. The hearing will examine the current state of the U.S. surface transportation construction workforce and how the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will impact job creation, challenges and opportunities to developing a workforce that can meet current and future infrastructure needs, and a review of government and industry initiatives designed to address workforce development challenges.
April 21, 2022
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today introduced the Breastfeeding Mothers Jury Duty Exclusion Act, which would allow breastfeeding mothers, upon their request, to be excused from jury service in federal court and in the federally controlled District of Columbia Superior Court. Norton says a constituent raised this issue in a letter to her office. The health benefits of breastfeeding are so well-documented that Norton wanted to bring jury service in line with existing federal policy on encouraging breastfeeding.
April 19, 2022
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today, the day after the federal tax filing deadline, called on the Senate to pass her District of Columbia statehood bill. Norton noted that D.C. pays more federal taxes per capita than any state and more federal taxes than 23 states, but D.C. residents have no voting representation in Congress.
April 19, 2022
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Last week, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) reintroduced her resolution commemorating Emancipation Day, which is an official holiday in the District of Columbia. Emancipation Day commemorates President Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the D.C. Compensated Emancipation Act, which freed 3,100 enslaved people in the District, nine months ahead of the Emancipation Proclamation.
April 15, 2022
WASHINGTON, D.C. — During the week of the anniversary of the start of the Civil War — April 12, 1861 — Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) introduced a bill to recognize and preserve the Civil War Defenses of Washington, located in the District of Columbia, Virginia, and Maryland, by redesignating them as a national historic park.