[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 19 (Wednesday, February 4, 2015)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E161]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


  THE INTRODUCTION OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT

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                       HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

                      of the district of columbia

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 4, 2015

  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce the District of Columbia 
Paperwork Reduction Act, to eliminate the wasteful congressional review 
process for legislation passed by the District of Columbia Council and 
to align longtime congressional practice and the law. The congressional 
review process for D.C. bills is ignored by Congress providing it no 
benefit, but imposes substantial costs (in time and money) on the 
District. Congress has almost always used the appropriations process 
rather than the disapproval process and entirely abandoned the 
congressional review process as its mechanism for overturning D.C. 
legislation twenty-three years ago, and only used it three times before 
that, preferring riders on D.C. appropriation bills instead. Yet 
Congress still requires the D.C. Council to use Kafkaesque make-work 
procedures to comply with the abandoned congressional review process 
established by the Home Rule Act of 1973.
  Our bill would eliminate the congressional review process for 
legislation passed by the D.C. Council. However, Congress would lose no 
authority it currently exercises because, even upon enactment of this 
bill, Congress would retain its authority under clause 17 of section 8 
of article I of the U.S. Constitution to amend or overturn any D.C. 
legislation at any time.
  The congressional review process (30 days for civil bills and 60 days 
for criminal bills) includes those days when either house of Congress 
is in session, delaying D.C. bills from becoming law, often for many 
months. The delay forces the D.C. Council to pass most bills several 
times, using a cumbersome and complicated process to ensure that the 
operations of this large and rapidly changing city continue 
uninterrupted, avoiding a lapse of the bill before it becomes final. 
The review period, based on legislative, not calendar, days means, for 
example, that a 30-day period usually lasts three calendar months and 
often much longer because of congressional recesses. The congressional 
review period for a bill that changed the word ``handicap'' to 
``disability'' lasted nine months. The Council estimates that 50-65 
percent of the bills the Council passes could be eliminated if the 
review period did not exist. To ensure that a bill becomes law, the 
Council often must pass the same legislation in three forms--emergency 
(in effect for 90 days), temporary (in effect for 225 days) and 
permanent. Moreover, the Council has to carefully track the days the 
House and Senate are in session for each D.C. bill it passes to avoid 
gaps and to determine when the bills have taken effect. The Council 
estimates that it could save 5,000 employee-hours and 160,000 sheets of 
paper per two-year legislative Council period if the review period were 
eliminated. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy addressed the issue of 
saving such resources by eliminating the amount of paperwork sent to 
Congress when he proposed a cut in the number of reports that federal 
agencies are required to submit to Congress. Our bill is a perfect 
candidate because it eliminates a paperwork process that repeats itself 
without interruption.
  My bill would do no more than align the Home Rule Act with 
congressional practice over the last twenty-three years. Of the more 
than 5,000 legislative acts transmitted to Congress since the Home Rule 
Act, only three resolutions disapproving D.C. legislation have been 
enacted--in 1979, 1981, and 1991--and two of those mistakenly involved 
federal interests in the Height Act and the location of chanceries. 
Placing a congressional hold on 5,000 D.C. bills has not only proven 
unnecessary, but has imposed fruitless costs on the D.C. government, 
residents and businesses. District residents and businesses are also 
placed on hold because they have no certainty when D.C. bills, from 
taxes to regulations, will take effect, making it difficult to plan. 
Instead of using the congressional review process to overturn D.C. 
legislation, Congress has preferred to use appropriation riders. 
Therefore, it is particularly unfair to require the D.C. Council to 
engage in a labor-intensive and costly process that Congress has itself 
long abandoned. My bill would only eliminate the automatic hold placed 
on D.C. legislation and the need for the D.C. Council to use a process 
initially passed for the convenience of Congress, but that Congress has 
since eliminated in all but law. This bill would promote efficiency and 
cost savings for Congress, the District, its residents, and businesses 
without reducing congressional oversight, and would carry out a policy 
stressed by Congress of eliminating needless paperwork and make-work 
redundancy.
  I urge my colleagues to support this good-government measure.

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