[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 41 (Thursday, March 13, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E466]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 ON EVE OF WAR D.C. VETERANS STAND WITH NORTON ON INTRODUCTION OF D.C. 
                           VOTING RIGHTS BILL

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

                      of the district of columbia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 13, 2003

  Ms. NORTON.  Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce the ``No Taxation 
Without Representation Act'' in the House, and simultaneously our good 
friend, Senator Joe Lieberman, will introduce the same bill in the 
Senate. The bill would afford the residents of the District of Columbia 
the same congressional voting rights enjoyed by all Americans. The 
introduction of this legislation follows a well-attended Town Meeting 
on voting rights last week of determined D.C. residents intent on 
obtaining Congressional voting rights, especially today as the nation 
prepares for war.
  Our bill is particularly inspired by the District of Columbia's 
46,000 veterans, who are represented by three distinguished veterans 
who appeared with me at a press conference this morning. I especially 
thank my friend, former Secretary of the Army Clifford Alexander, who 
also served in the United States Army. Secretary Alexander has long 
worked for equal rights for the American people, and especially for 
D.C. residents, and was the lead plaintiff in one of the D.C. voting 
rights cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, Alexander v. Daley. I am 
also personally indebted to Secretary Alexander, who preceded me as an 
especially distinguished chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity 
Commission. I am also grateful to the other veterans who are here 
today. Both are D.C. residents and graduates of the service academies--
Wesley Brown, the first black graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and a 
former chair of my Service Academy Selection Board and George Keys, a 
graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy and current Selection Board 
Member as well as a former chair. The Service Academy Selection Board 
performs an indispensable service for D.C. residents and for our 
country. Board members spend countless hours screening, interviewing 
and selecting candidates for me to nominate to the nation's service 
academies.
  I also invited the current chair of my Service Academy Board, Mr. 
Kerwin Miller, to participate in the press conference today, and he 
originally agreed to speak. However, Mr. Miller not only serves on my 
Service Academy Board, he also is the Executive Director of the D.C. 
Office of Veterans Affairs. Mr. Miller was forced to decline for 
reasons that sharply underscore the very reason why we are here today. 
Mr. Miller is unable to appear at this press conference because of a 
rider attached to the District's annual appropriations legislation that 
prohibits city officials, except for elected officials, from lobbying 
on behalf of their own voting rights. Not only is the District of 
Columbia denied voting rights, but the Congress adds insult to injury 
by attaching this outrageous provision to our own budget to 
deliberately hamstring the city in its quest for voting rights. This 
provision is hideously un-American, and I again will seek to have it 
repealed, especially this year.

  In seeking full congressional representation, we often have stressed 
the District's taxpaying status because most of us pay federal taxes 
and because uniquely among American citizens, D.C. gets no vote in 
Congress in return. However, today we emphasize a duty of citizenship 
far more important, requiring far greater sacrifice. Ever since 
America's first war, the Revolutionary War, that was waged to eliminate 
taxation without representation, D.C. residents have fought and died 
for their country. They have done so often disproportionately. In World 
War I, the District suffered more casualties than three states; in 
World War II, more casualties than four states; in the Korean War, more 
casualties than eight states; and in Vietnam, more casualties than ten 
states.
  Since I have been in Congress, I have participated in ceremonies that 
have sent D.C. residents to the Persian Gulf War, to Afghanistan, and 
now to the Iraqi border. I have never been able to vote in their name, 
and our residents are without any representation in the Senate. Yet, in 
today's military, each is a volunteer who has willingly taken on the 
most weighty of all the obligations of citizenship. Thus, I introduce 
our voting rights bill today for D.C. residents but particularly for 
our residents serving in the military today and the nearly 50,000 
veterans who live in our city.
  Encouraged by the 9-0 Senate Committee vote that took the city's 
voting rights bill to the Senate floor last year, we are now in the 
throes of preparations to take our case to the country. Let us begin by 
telling America what too many do not know about service and sacrifice 
without representation.
  I urge my colleagues to support this vital legislation.

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