[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 53 (Tuesday, April 12, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H2579-H2580]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               HOME RULE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor today to celebrate the 
41 District of Columbia elected officials and residents led by Mayor 
Vincent Gray and five members of the D.C. City Council who were 
arrested in front of the Hart Senate office building yesterday evening, 
and hundreds of other residents who gathered to protest their second-
class treatment as American citizens by the Republican House, the 
Democratic-led Senate, and the administration.
  The 2011 continuing resolution due on the floor this week contains a 
sinister trade that takes the District of Columbia's self-governing 
rights to spend its own local funds on abortion services for poor 
women, as many jurisdictions have long done. The CR also funds the 
start-up of a new, private school voucher program but only in D.C., 
about which no local elected official was consulted.
  It is the House Republicans who have been on an undemocratic warpath 
against the District's home rule. But yesterday, residents did not 
spare Senate Democrats or the President who, in the end, accepted 
Republican demands. The House will hear from me again as I try to 
remove these anti-home rule riders; but this body has repeatedly turned 
a deaf ear to me on violations of the city's most basic rights to local 
control.
  Congress continually and summarily refused my bill and several 
amendments to allow the District to spend its own local funds to avoid 
a shutdown of the city government that would have occurred with a 
Federal shutdown, even though only our local funds were involved.
  Yesterday, however, Congress and the country heard from the people 
themselves. House rules do not allow Members to organize 
demonstrations, and yesterday's spontaneous outpouring of citizens, 
where I was not present, showed why the people must always speak for 
themselves. D.C. Vote organized yesterday's mammoth demonstration in a 
couple of days; and residents poured onto Constitution Avenue, anxious 
for an outlet for their accumulated outrage at being traded on a 
congressional auction block.

[[Page H2580]]

  Yesterday, the House, the Senate, and the administration heard the 
voices and saw the faces of our city. The House may disagree with the 
views of our American citizens on women's constitutional reproductive 
rights, but no American would sanction congressional mandates on how 
our local citizens may spend the local taxes they raise. The Speaker 
may favor private school vouchers, but no American would agree that his 
preference should override a city's local decision for public charter 
schools as the alternative to our private schools.
  The House may continue to ignore me; but yesterday D.C. elected 
officials and residents, like millions of others throughout the world, 
showed that the people will not be ignored forever.
  I will offer a separate statement including the names of the 
residents and officials who were arrested, with gratitude.

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