[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 17 (Wednesday, February 11, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H484]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor this afternoon to inform 
this body that, for the first time in the history of the United States, 
our country has been found guilty of a major human rights violation.
  The Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American 
States, a body in which we proudly participate, a body which we helped 
to finance, has made public its finding today after an 11-year 
investigation. I would like to quote what the Commission found.
  ``The commission concludes that the State,'' meaning the United 
States, ``has failed to justify the denials of the petitioners of the 
effective representation in their Federal Government and, consequently, 
that the petitioners have been denied an effective right to participate 
in their government, directly or through freely chosen representatives 
and in general conditions of equality, contrary to Articles XX and II 
of the American Declaration'' of rights of man.
  The Commission was referring to the denial of voting representation 
in the Congress of the United States to the residents of the capital of 
the United States who are second per capita in the Federal income taxes 
they pay to support their government and who have fought and died in 
every war, fought and died, since the Revolutionary War, since the 
establishment of our government.
  This ruling comes at a very important time in our history because we 
have not only declared that democracy and democratic principles must be 
universal, we have invaded another country. We are, as I speak, around 
the world proclaiming that each and every government must give full 
democracy, equal democracy to all the people of that government.
  This government does not do that for the people of the District of 
Columbia, and an international body for the first time has so found. 
The international body, the Commission on Human Rights of the OAS, 
enjoys great prestige. We cannot say that this is not a body that does 
not enjoy our respect, and it is a body in which we have proudly 
participated.
  The United States defended fully, and its defense was found wanting. 
We have every reason to desire the full confidence of the world. We 
need the world with us as we fight against terrorists bent on 
destroying us. We have lost much of that confidence because of the 
invasion of Iraq. We have rallied around our troops in Iraq and around 
our country because our country is at war. But our country now needs 
the world more than the world needs our country.
  I cannot imagine anything that would go further to restore the waning 
confidence of the world in our leadership then for the Congress, for 
the administration to reach out and say to the people who live here, 
you are entitled to no fewer rights than any other American citizens.
  Even as our country decided when I was a child going to segregated 
schools in the Nation's capital, no less that we could apply our own 
self-corrective and, indeed, integrate those schools and declare 
discriminatory practice off limits in our country, so we can take this 
last remaining scar on our democracy and wipe it from us. We simply 
must do it now.
  The shame of having a violation of human rights declared upon us even 
as we have a long list of violators that we publish every year cannot 
be long-standing. This country has always stepped up to correct its own 
problems. This is a problem that stares in the face of the Congress of 
the United States every day that we open for business and meet because 
the 600,000 people who live here do not have a vote on this floor and 
have no senators who represent them.

                              {time}  1715

  This country, our people would not stand for this anywhere in the 
world; and if I may say so, our people do not stand for it now. Polls 
show they do not even know it, that the American people think that the 
people who live in their Nation's capital have the same rights that 
they do. Shame on us that they do not.
  I ask the Congress of the United States to, in fact, adhere to the 
decision of the Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of 
American States and grant full and equal voting rights in the Congress 
of the United States to the people of the District of Columbia.

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