Press Releases

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) announced today that the Committee on Oversight and Reform (COR) tomorrow will mark up two of her bills, the D.C. Chief Financial Officer Salary Home Rule Act, which would allow D.C. to raise the pay of its Chief Financial Officer (CFO), and the D.C. Local Juror Non-Discrimination Act, which would bar disqualification from jury service in the D.C. Superior Court based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The markup begins at 9 a.m. and may be viewed on COR’s website.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), chair of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure’s Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, said that the infrastructure framework announced by President Biden yesterday is an indication of bipartisan progress on the President’s infrastructure agenda but falls far short in total funding and on climate change. However, she said that even this framework is unlikely to pass unless it meets Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s ultimatum that there will be no House vote on the physical infrastructure bill until the Senate also passes the President’s human infrastructure bill, including childcare and nutrition.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) praised the fiscal year 2022 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill, which passed out of the Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee yesterday, for providing $254 million to the General Services Administration for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) consolidation project at the St. Elizabeths West Campus in Ward 8 in the District of Columbia.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) and Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) today announced that their bill to ban smoking, including electronic cigarettes, on Amtrak was recently passed by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee as part of the INVEST in America Act and by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation as part of the Surface Transportation Investment Act of 2021.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) announced the major victories she secured in the House’s fiscal year 2022 District of Columbia Appropriations bill, which was released today. The bill provides $40 million for the D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant Program (DCTAG), which a Norton bill created, and, importantly, increases the DCTAG annual and lifetime awards; prohibits the president from federalizing the D.C. police department; and, in other important steps, removes the two enacted fiscal year 2021 riders, which prohibit D.C. from spending its local funds on abortion services for low-income women and on recreational marijuana commercialization, which more than a dozen states have done.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said that the House’s fiscal year 2022 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill, released today, provides $254 million for the General Services Administration for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) consolidation project at the St. Elizabeths West Campus in Ward 8 in the District of Columbia.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – During Pride Month, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) yesterday reintroduced her District of Columbia Non-Discrimination Home Rule Act to end the unique applicability of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) to the District of Columbia. RFRA, which provides more protection for religious exercise than the First Amendment requires, applies to the federal government, the D.C. government and the territorial governments, but not to state governments. Norton’s bill would ensure the District is treated the same as states, while defending LGBTQ and reproductive rights in D.C.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said today’s Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing made a strong case for the D.C. statehood bill. Norton delivered opening remarks at the hearing. “Today’s hearing, just the second Senate hearing on the D.C. statehood bill in history, made the definitive case for the bill,” Norton said. “Despite many questions from Republican senators seeking to challenge the constitutionality of the bill and D.C.’s own ‘readiness’ for statehood, the testimony presented from Mayor Bowser and expert witnesses leaves no doubt that the Washington, D.C. Admission Act is constitutional and that the state would meet all of the financial, economic and other obligations of states.