[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 165 (Thursday, November 17, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H6296-H6297]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





                 STATEHOOD FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Costello of Pennsylvania). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 6, 2015, the gentlewoman from the 
District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) is recognized for 60 minutes as the 
designee of the minority leader.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, first, I want to say that my colleague from 
Texas (Mr. Gohmert), who spoke just before me, mentioned a divided 
country and used a metaphor--I hope it will become a metaphor--for the 
coming Congress of the African American coach who coached a White team 
and seemed to be able to reconcile people. If this Congress doesn't 
learn the art of compromise, even though my Republican colleagues have 
captured the reins of government, they will still have trouble, without 
thoughtful compromise, getting matters through the House and the 
Senate. So I endorse the metaphor--that is what Mr. Gohmert meant--of 
Coach Williams as the kind of Congress we should be beginning in 
January if we want to override the last several Congresses which got 
very little done. It will take more than bringing all the reins of 
government under one party to get that done.
  I come to the floor this afternoon particularly to offer some 
background to new Members of Congress--but, I must say, to current 
Members of Congress as well--because there seems to me to be great 
mystery concerning what role Members of Congress should play when 
matters affecting a jurisdiction, not their own, come before them in 
this House. They know for sure that their own constituents didn't send 
them here to legislate for somebody else's district, so how come and 
what does it mean and how can we get on with the business of the 
Nation?
  On November 8, the residents of the District of Columbia in an over-
the-top 85 percent majority--with support, by the way, from our 
Republican Party in the District--passed a statehood referendum to 
petition the Congress for statehood for the District of Columbia. I 
don't think they did so because they thought that either a Democratic 
President or a Republican President, a Democratic Congress, would move 
quickly on a statehood bill, but it does express frustration that I 
believe my colleagues would identify with at not being treated as the 
full-fledged American citizens they are. On November 8, not only was I 
running for Congress and many of my colleagues--or most of my 
colleagues--the District of Columbia was, in effect, running for 
statehood.
  Now, there are three ways to become a State: you can amend the 
Constitution; you can have Congress pass a bill, and we have a bill 
pending here now; or a State can formally petition the Congress to 
become a State, instead of waiting for Congress to pass a bill in the 
ordinary course of business.
  The way to petition the Congress was patterned by the State of 
Tennessee, which was then a territory. In 1795, Tennessee drafted a 
constitution, passed a referendum, indicated what its boundaries would 
be, and petitioned, succeeding in becoming the 16th State of the Union.
  At the same time that 85 percent of the residents of the District of 
Columbia passed the statehood referendum to do the same thing--I don't 
want to be misunderstood. Our residents have not given up on seeking 
any and all elements of statehood. Even before statehood is granted, 
statehood consists of many different elements. Indeed, almost 
simultaneously, indeed, before the statehood referendum, they had voted 
for a budget autonomy referendum. You can imagine the insult to the 
residents of the District of Columbia to raise $7 billion and then have 
to call on somebody else for permission to spend their own money.

                              {time}  1315

  Budget autonomy has long been the priority of the District of 
Columbia, and every Member of this body knows that what you prize most 
is the control that your own jurisdiction has over its own local budget 
and that, no matter what we do on the Federal budget, they can't touch 
your budget. Yes, they add to your budget, but your budget is your 
budget, and our budget is our budget. Members of Congress don't look at 
our budget. They know they don't know how to run a big city of, going 
on, 700,000 people, but the budget becomes a vehicle for interfering 
with the business of a local jurisdiction--the District of Columbia.
  Now, Congress, in the congressional resolution that is pending, has 
appropriated next year's budget--that is to say, the 2017 budget. At 
the same time, I want to alert Congress that the budget autonomy 
referendum I just spoke of is in effect. That has not been overturned. 
It has been tested in court. The Court of Appeals for the District of 
Columbia vacated an opinion of the district court that indicated that 
the budget autonomy referendum, whereby the District was giving itself 
autonomy over its own budget, was unconstitutional. It vacated that, so 
that does not stand. Instead, it sent it to the Superior Court of the 
District of Columbia, and the superior court considered it and upheld 
the Budget Autonomy Act. No appeal was filed; so the Budget Autonomy 
Act is still law.
  It is interesting that the Federal court sent the matter to the local 
court. I think the Federal court was telling us something: that, when 
it comes to discerning what are the local powers, we ought to look 
first to the local courts. No appeal was filed. The Federal courts 
have, in effect, deferred to the local court; so the budget autonomy 
referendum stands as law, notwithstanding the fact that the 
congressional resolution does, in fact, appropriate D.C.'s budget.
  So you can see how there is some attempt to come to grips with this 
issue in Congress and to come to some kind of, at least, compromise, 
and I appreciate that. It is very hard to understand congressional 
opposition to autonomy, such as it is, that the District wishes over 
its own budget.
  What the District has done in designing its own budget autonomy 
referendum is certainly not to give itself statehood. The referendum is 
a very moderate notion because the local budget would still come to the 
House of Representatives and to the Senate for a review period, just as 
all local legislation--even though almost none of it is overturned 
during this period--has to come here before it becomes law. Congress 
would continue, under the current budget autonomy referendum, to have 
the existing jurisdiction over the District of Columbia, and it is 
going to have that jurisdiction until the District of Columbia becomes 
the 51st State.
  Budget autonomy does not interfere, as it is mapped out in the budget 
autonomy referendum, with the powers of the Congress. So why not say to 
the District: you can have control over your own budget. If we want to 
interfere, we can still interfere; but you don't have to bring it up 
here. We can interfere without your bringing it up here.
  Until this Congress, actually, the District had bipartisan support 
for budget autonomy. The last two Republican chairmen of the committee 
of jurisdiction over the District, which is the Oversight and 
Government Reform Committee, understood--maybe precisely because they 
were Republicans--why budget autonomy was the very first thing a local 
jurisdiction ought to demand. Former Representative Thomas Davis and 
Darrell Issa fought for budget autonomy. Mr. Issa is still in this 
body, as I understand it.
  Representative Davis said recently: ``The benefits of budget autonomy 
for the District are numerous, real, and much needed. There is no 
drawback.''
  Budget autonomy means lower borrowing costs, more accurate financial 
projections, improved operations, and the District government will not 
shut down during a Federal Government shutdown. Imagine that. That is 
what has happened several times here because this budget has to come 
here even when the District of Columbia, as always, is not implicated 
in disagreements with the Federal Government. If it shuts down then I 
have to take action to make sure the District doesn't shut down with it 
because, in the past, it has, indeed, been shut down for no reason 
except the Federal Government, itself, was shut down because it 
couldn't agree on Federal matters.
  The District has tried all conceivable ways to get some equality with 
other citizens. For example, the House in 2007 and the Senate in 2009 
passed the House Voting Rights Act. That would have given the District 
a vote in the House but not in the Senate. But at least in the people's 
House, you would not have

[[Page H6297]]

the outrage of, for example, this Member who cannot vote on any matter 
on this floor but whose matters do come before the House of 
Representatives. It had good bipartisan support. Speaker Ryan, at the 
time, supported it. Our current Vice President, at the time, supported 
it. Our Vice President-elect supported it. There was some understanding 
that, even if you are not ready for statehood, you are not ready for 
the status quo for the almost 700,000 people who live in the District 
of Columbia.
  There are other elements of statehood: legislative autonomy. If the 
District passes a bill, it can't become law until it lies over. That 
means it just stops until we see whether somebody from the House or the 
Senate wants to overturn a law. It is almost never used. I can't 
remember the last time it was used, yet that is an authority that lies 
in this Congress. Why would Congress want to keep an authority when it 
never uses it? There are other ways, if it wants to interfere, rather 
than forcing the District through long waits to have its bills become 
law. These are enigmas of the last century. They have no place in a 
modern House and Senate.
  I have been able--and I am grateful--that, each year, for the last 
several years, I have been able, in advance, to get language that has 
meant that, even if the House or the Senate had to close down, the 
District would not close down. It is not as if there aren't some in 
the House who see why I come before you today. We believe that, 
ultimately, as Congress sees that the components of statehood work--not 
shutting down the government, maybe budget autonomy or legislative 
autonomy--they will see that a new State of American citizens should 
have the same rights in every respect as other American citizens.

  In 2014, we were very pleased to get the first official hearing ever 
in the Senate on D.C. statehood. There was a huge overflow crowd. They 
had to open up other rooms beyond where the hearing was held. The case 
for statehood was made by a number of witnesses at that hearing. The 
District was able to show that it has one of the strongest economies in 
the Nation.
  How many of my colleagues are from States that have a $12.5 billion 
budget, much less their districts? Because that is larger than the 
budget of 12 States. How many of my colleagues can boast for their 
States, much less their Districts, $2 billion in surplus, which has 
become the envy of the States?
  How many of my colleagues have per capita personal income as high as 
ours? None, because the per capita income--per person income--in the 
District of Columbia is higher than that of any State. Our total 
personal income per capita is higher than that of seven States. Our per 
capita personal consumption expenditure is higher than that of any 
State.
  Look at the growth in population with people coming in large numbers 
to live in the Nation's Capital--one of the highest growth rates in 
population in the United States. In a city that was about 600,000, it 
has increased more than 50,000 since the last census, giving the 
District a larger population than two of our States that have two 
Senators and one Representative--Wyoming and Vermont.
  Of course, there are many reasons statehood is very personal to me. 
If the bell rings for votes on bills, I cannot cast a vote for the more 
than 650,000 people I represent, though my constituents pay more taxes 
per capita than those who do come to cast that vote.
  I feel it also very particularly when we have votes on any matter 
affecting war, like ISIL, because I have gone to the floor to debate 
matters of war a number of times since coming to Congress 25 years ago. 
I remember, for example, District residents who died in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, and I was not able to vote ``aye'' or ``no'' as they went 
off and got the vote for those in their jurisdictions. I remember the 
purple fingers that showed that people had voted, while these District 
of Columbia residents, in having gotten the vote for others, came home 
and still did not have the vote.
  Mr. Speaker, this is an embarrassing anachronism that comes out of 
the 18th century. When the Framers, who were otherwise--I must say in 
virtually every other way--perfect, couldn't figure out what to do when 
the Capital was in Philadelphia and the Revolutionary War veterans 
marched on that Capital, they thought: well, we want to make sure the 
Capital is not a part of a State. What will we do with the District of 
Columbia?
  They were not sure, but they said: we will retain some jurisdiction 
over the Capital in case we need to.
  You don't need to--or let us say you do. There are 20 different 
Federal police forces that help protect the local District of Columbia 
every single day. This is a figment of another era if we are talking 
about protecting the Capital. In any case, it is impossible to lay to 
the Framers, who invented the slogan ``no taxation without 
representation,'' that they meant the people who fought in that war, 
that Revolutionary War, were to come home and have no representation.

                              {time}  1330

  Mr. Speaker, statehood has been very difficult for every State to 
achieve. The last two States were Alaska and Hawaii, and it took them 
each more than 50 years. It would have taken us much longer.
  So what the District did in voting 85 percent for statehood was to 
understand it has to fertilize on a continuing basis our effort to 
become equal citizens or it just won't happen. This is a political 
matter and a moral matter, but the two mix. So we know we have to 
convince our colleagues, and we know everything depends on us.
  So that energy that comes out of that vote you will see manifest all 
next year. It has already raised the national profile for statehood for 
our country.
  Now, many, many Americans know that when they see me speak on the 
House floor does not mean I have the same rights as everyone else. My 
greatest frustration is that most Americans think that the Americans 
who live in the Nation's Capital have the same rights they do.
  The statehood vote and the drive leading up to it, the statehood 
referendum has helped many more Americans to understand that is not the 
case. There has never been a poll that showed anything but the desire 
of the American people that the people of the District of Columbia be 
treated equally with themselves.
  Mr. Speaker, Congress has two choices: It can continue to exercise 
authority over the American people who reside here in the Nation's 
Capital, treating them--if I may quote the words of the great Frederick 
Douglass--as ``aliens, non-citizens,'' but subjects or it can take 
another course. This Congress can live up to the national promise, the 
ideals that we all profess, and help the people of the District of 
Columbia move toward equal citizenship, toward autonomy over their own 
budget, toward legislative autonomy, and finally toward statehood as 
the 51st State of the United States of America.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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