[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 111 (Friday, August 7, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1643]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1999

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                       HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

                      of the district of columbia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, August 6, 1998

       The House in Committee of the Whole House on the State of 
     the Union had under consideration the bill (H.R. 4380) making 
     appropriations for the government of the District of Columbia 
     and other activities chargeable in whole or in part against 
     revenues of said District for the fiscal year ending 
     September 30, 1999, and for other purposes:

  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues on both sides of the 
aisle to give me a ``no'' vote on the rule before you. The rule is 
unworthy of a serious national legislature. The Congress has received a 
balanced consensus budget with a surplus no less from a local 
jurisdiction, the District of Columbia, containing only the city's 
taxpayer-raised funds. Instead of minding its own national business and 
getting on with the mountain of work left for us to do, this bill has 
become an excuse for indulging the controversial social and financial 
whims of some Members of this body. That is unfair to you, it is unfair 
to me, and it is unfair to District residents. Defeat this rule, unless 
you are prepared to waste a lot more time in Washington on the smallest 
appropriation and the one least relevant to your constituents.
  I have the Administration's Statement of Policy here. A litany of 
objections to this bill are listed by the Administration. Among them 
are three amendments which have been made in order, vouchers, the 
prohibition on adoption by married couples, and the prohibition on 
local funds for needle exchange, among others.
  This rule reads like a who's who of special interests. It nullifies a 
modest residency rule that the Control Board supports because the 
residency law strengthens the recovering D.C. economy. It puts this 
body through another vouchers fight not three months after the 
President has vetoed vouchers. It will make you vote on tricky social 
issues many Republican and Democratic Members would just as soon avoid.
  Two provisions strike at the core of democracy. One gratuitously bars 
the use of local funds in cooperating with a pro bono voting rights 
lawsuit that hardly involves the city, anyway. The other defunds the 
advisory neighborhood commissions that get pittance amounts as elected 
neighborhood officials who attend to grassroots problems like assuring 
that parks and river banks do not accumulate trash or harbor crime. At 
the last minute, a Member got a bright idea, he decided that the 
District's tobacco prohibitions might be strengthened but did not give 
me the courtesy of allowing me to ask the City Council to do it 
themselves.
  When you vote on this rule, you will make a statement of where you 
stand on controversial social issues and where you stand on democracy 
and devolution. The D.C. appropriation is not the place to take your 
stand on social legislation. The D.C. appropriation is the place to 
stand up for democracy. The way to do both is to defeat this rule.

                          ____________________