[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 41 (Thursday, March 13, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H1879]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     SUPPORT VOTING RIGHTS LEGISLATION FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Blackburn). Under a previous order of 
the House, the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) 
is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, today I have introduced a D.C. voting 
rights bill here in the House, and in the Senate it has been introduced 
by Senator Lieberman with seven sponsors besides Mr. Lieberman: Mr. 
Feingold, Ms. Feinstein, Mr. Schumer, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Kennedy, and Ms. 
Landrieu. I will be seeking cosponsors here in the House from both 
sides of the aisle beginning next week, and I will be seeking it on 
this eve of war. I am asking Members of the House to consider what it 
means to send people to war when those same people have no vote in the 
House and no Senators whatsoever. We, of course, are second per capita 
in Federal income taxes. Unless one comes from Connecticut, your 
constituents do not pay as much in Federal income tax as we do. Most of 
our residents pay income taxes.
  The difference this year is that we are emphasizing something that 
most of our residents and most of my colleagues' residents have not had 
to do. On the eve of war, we honor 50,000 veterans of the District of 
Columbia who live here now. Three distinguished veterans who are also 
Washingtonians stood with me to announce that we are introducing the No 
Taxation Without Representation Act. They were former Secretary of the 
Army, Clifford Alexander, Harvard College, Yale Law School; Wesley 
Brown, a native Washingtonian, the first black person ever to graduate 
from the Naval Academy. He is also a graduate of Rensselaer 
Polytechnic, served in Korea in World War II, and is the former chair 
of my Service Academy Nominating Board that nominates young people from 
the District, selects people from the District for me to nominate to go 
to the academies. George Keyes, native Washingtonian, Air Force 
Academy, Yale Law School, Rhodes Scholar, just finished as chair of my 
nominating board for the service academies.
  The present Chair, Kerwin Miller, was to be here. A West Point 
graduate, he could not attend for a completely outrageous reason. The 
House has attached a rider that forbids anybody who happens to be an 
employee of the District government from lobbying for voting rights. 
This man is head of the D.C. Veterans Affairs Office. What an outrage, 
Madam Speaker. This veteran, this West Point graduate, could not come 
here to plead for his own freedom because of a rider that has been 
attached to an appropriations bill that should not even be here in the 
first place because it consists of money raised in the District of 
Columbia.
  The Revolutionary War ``Taxation without Representation'' slogan has 
been with us since District residents fought in that war and have 
fought in every war since. The people I represent have indeed had more 
casualties in many wars than many others in this House. In World War I, 
more casualties than three States; in World War II, more casualties 
than four States; in Korea, more casualties than eight States; and in 
Vietnam, more casualties than 10 States. And no vote, Madam Speaker.
  Since I have been in the House, three wars have taken place: the 
Persian Gulf War, Afghanistan, and now we are on the verge of war with 
Iraq. I have spoken at all three, sent all three off to war, all with 
no vote.
  Madam Speaker, it is one thing to give your taxes to your government 
without a vote. It is quite another to lay your life on the line for 
your country without a vote.
  Everyone in the military today is a volunteer. There is a freeze so 
one cannot even get out, making it really a draft. Taxes without a vote 
in return is awful, particularly in this body that does not want people 
to pay taxes in the everyday sense of the word. But patriotism without 
a vote for it is a shame and a shame on us, particularly given the kind 
of war we now want to fight, a war for democracy in Iraq and in the 
Middle East.
  I am pleased that there are Republicans who have said to me, This is 
wrong and I am not for it.
  Voting is not a partisan issue, except in undemocratic countries. It 
cannot be a partisan issue in our country today when we are sending 
young men and women off to war, yes, even from the Nation's Capital. So 
the people I represent, in whose name I submitted this bill today, 
standing with three veterans who live in the District of Columbia, I 
ask this question of this House: how much longer are you going to ask 
the residents of your Nation's Capital, 600,000 of them, to pay taxes 
more than most of my colleagues do per capita and to go to war without 
the right to vote? How long? I hope not very long.

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