[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 8 (Wednesday, January 23, 2013)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E56-E57]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 INTRODUCTION OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA EQUAL REPRESENTATION ACT AND 
            THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA HOUSE VOTING RIGHTS ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

                      of the district of columbia

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, January 23, 2013

  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce two bills that 
provide different approaches for obtaining voting representation for 
the more than 600,000 American citizens who reside in the nation's 
capital and pay the full array of federal taxes that support the 
government of the United States, but have no voting representation in 
Congress. These bills are the District of Columbia Equal Representation 
Act and the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act. I have 
introduced these bills during different periods in the past. I 
introduce them today after listening to residents at the many Community 
Conversations I have held in each ward of the District since a 
dangerous gun amendment--which would have eliminated all of the 
District's gun safety laws and would have done much more--forced us to 
decline to move to final passage of the District of Columbia House 
Voting Rights Act in April 2010.
  I introduce these bills today, in the same month that the House 
majority again eliminated the District's vote in the Committee of the 
Whole, despite rulings by the federal courts that this vote is 
constitutional. It therefore is clear that the House would not consider 
any approach to representation and full democracy for D.C. residents at 
this time. As my first bill of the 113th Congress, I introduced the New 
Columbia Admission Act, to make the District of Columbia the 51st 
state, the only option that affords the residents of the District of 
Columbia equality with other American citizens, and the option we will 
always seek. However, today, I am reintroducing two bills that 
residents have indicated would have their continued support on the way 
to statehood, which they deserve. Residents embraced these approaches 
because they were possible at the time. Today's bills will help ensure 
that there is no weakening in the momentum that these bills helped 
build here and throughout the country over the past several years.
  The District of Columbia Equal Representation Act would give the 
District of Columbia two senators and, initially, one House member. 
With statehood delayed, then-Senator Joseph Lieberman and I introduced 
this bill for several years as the No Taxation Without Representation 
Act. The House, which was controlled by Republicans, did not act on the 
bill. The Senate held hearings and marked up the bill in 2002, but did 
not bring it to the floor.
  The second bill, the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act, to 
give D.C., initially, one House member, almost became law. In 2005, 
when I continued to be in the minority, then-Representative Tom Davis 
and I partnered on a bipartisan bill giving House votes to Democratic 
D.C. and Republican Utah. The D.C. House Voting Rights Act marked the 
first time in decades that we achieved large majority votes in the 
House and Senate for voting rights for D.C. residents, and brought the 
city closer than we have ever come to voting representation in more 
than two centuries. This bill likely would be law

[[Page E57]]

today had the gun lobby not insisted on adding an amendment that would 
not only have eliminated the District's gun safety laws, but also would 
have added measures making the nation's capital one of the most 
permissive gun jurisdictions in the country.
  In introducing these bills, we lay down a marker of our determination 
to never relent or retreat until we have obtained each and every right 
to which we are entitled, whether through the frustration and anguish 
of the incrementalism that Congress has always forced upon the District 
or through statehood. We will be watchful to both make and seize every 
opportunity to pursue our rights, regardless of who controls Congress. 
We accept no imposed limit on our equal rights as American citizens, 
and we will pursue them all until the day when there is no difference 
in citizenship between residents of the District of Columbia and other 
American citizens.

                          ____________________