[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 39 (Thursday, March 22, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E439]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   INTRODUCTION OF THE NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION ACT OF 2001

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                       HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

                      of the district of columbia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 22, 2001

  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce the No Taxation Without 
Representation Act in the House as my good friend and colleague Senator 
Joe Lieberman introduces the bill in the Senate. We are simultaneously 
introducing the No Taxation Without Representation Act in the Senate 
and the House to make the point that we intend to travel both roads at 
once. In America, there are no House citizens and Senate citizens. The 
Framers were clear that American citizens are entitled to 
representation in both houses. Whether you are a fourth generation 
Washingtonian, as I am, or a newly naturalized American from El 
Salvador, as many of my constituents are, you are entitled to full 
representation in the House and Senate.
  This bill takes a fresh approach to the denial of voting rights to 
almost 600,000 residents of the District. We are asking Congress to 
erase the shameful double inequality borne by no Americans except those 
who live in our capital: inequality with Americans whose federal 
taxpaying status automatically affords them voting representation, and 
inequality with Americans in the four territories who, like the 
District, have no vote but in return are relieved of federal income 
taxes.
  In keeping with the nation's founding principles, our bill puts the 
full question to the Congress: first and foremost, that D.C. residents 
insist upon full and equal voting representation, but the bill also 
poses the corollary principle emblazoned in our history by the American 
Revolution itself: that there should be no taxation without 
representation. We put the same demand to the Congress that the 
founders of our nation put to King George, ``Give us our vote, or give 
us our taxes.'' Confronted with the alternative: D.C.'s $2 billion in 
federal income taxes or voting representation for its citizens, we 
believe that Congress ultimately will choose the vote over the money. 
In a democracy, Congress will understand that it must be where its 
constituents already are. According to polls, most Americans believe 
the citizens of our capital already enjoy congressional voting rights. 
When informed otherwise, almost 75% of American say that Congress 
should give those rights to us now.
  In framing the issue as we do for the first time today, we mean to 
make ``taxation without representation'' more than a slogan--and a lot 
more than a cliche. This bill expresses the new energy for D.C. voting 
rights that has become palpable in the District. The revived 
determination of residents was fueled by the landmark D.C. voting 
rights cases, where the Supreme Court directed D.C. residents to the 
Congress for relief. To the Congress they have come in the largest 
numbers for D.C. voting rights in 25 years, first for a hanging-from-
the-rafters town meeting and then for the month-long campaign to get 
back the vote in the Committee of the Whole we first won in 1993. 
Today, we are back again with a new voting rights bill and support from 
one of the great leaders of our country. We will keep coming back until 
the American principle of one person, one vote lives in the capital as 
it does in the rest of the country. We may not be there yet, but we 
will get there as Joe Lieberman recruits sponsors in the Senate and I 
gather colleagues in the House. We will get there as Congress comes to 
recognize that already a sizeable majority of Americans support our 
rights and are the wind at our backs.

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