[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 209 (Thursday, December 21, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H10407-H10411]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           44 YEARS OF HOME RULE FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, 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, I come to the floor this evening to 
commemorate 44 years of home rule. The Home Rule Act was signed by 
President Richard Nixon on Christmas Eve 44 years ago after the Home 
Rule Act was passed by a bipartisan vote.
  Although it was a Democratic Congress, I think it is worth noting 
what President Nixon said in his signing speech. I am going to quote a 
few of his sentences:
  ``As a longtime supporter of self-government for the District of 
Columbia, I am pleased to sign into law a measure which is of historic 
significance for the citizens of our Nation's Capital. I first voted 
for home rule as a Member of the House of Representatives in 1948, and 
I have endorsed the enactment of home rule legislation during both my 
terms as President.''
  Then he went on to say: ``It is particularly appropriate to assure 
those persons who live in our Capital City rights the privileges which 
have long been enjoyed by most of their countrymen.''
  The bill enjoyed bipartisan support throughout those congressional 
deliberations.
  Mr. Speaker, surely we can get back to that moment. The District of 
Columbia is proud and pleased that it has been steeped in American 
history ever since the site of the Nation's Capital was chosen by 
George Washington himself.
  We are proud to be not only hometown D.C., but the Capital of our 
country.
  So this evening, I want to speak about those two roles and about the 
role of Congress as we move past December 24, 44 years ago--1973--to 
today, when D.C. residents have every reason to believe that our 
country is ready and overdue for D.C. statehood itself.
  Now, my Republican colleagues understand fully our role as the 
Nation's Capital. They understand it because they welcome their own 
constituents,

[[Page H10408]]

the tourists who come here. There are something upwards of almost 20 
million. Many of them come to their own congressperson's offices first. 
But Republicans often dissolve the District's role into their role 
without making the appropriate distinction.
  Now, I appreciate it is not easy to understand a jurisdiction that 
has a double identity, a hometown identity and a Capital identity.
  No, we are not schizophrenic here. So let's discuss this evening what 
this means. I want to discuss it in part because the inevitable 
turnover in the Congress means that I should come to the floor and 
explain this dilemma of our creation periodically.
  The first thing we want to do is to avoid the slander that the 
Framers of our Constitution, the Founders of our country, meant to 
create a Capital City whose residents were not the equals of residents 
everywhere in the country, because if that had been the case, you 
wouldn't have had the Capital in the first place.
  The Capital was created from two jurisdictions, Maryland and 
Virginia, where residents had the right to vote and where they had 
every single right of American citizens. Those two States were 
convinced to give the territory that is now the District of Columbia 
for the Nation's Capital. They were not about to give up their votes in 
the Capital and did not.
  Isn't it interesting, during the transition period, the 
Representatives from Maryland and Virginia continued to vote as they 
always had and continued to be recognized in their own jurisdictions, 
all the while, for a 10-year period, when the land was, in fact, being 
transferred to become what is now the District of Columbia?
  The relationship that the District has to the Federal Government, to 
the Congress of the United States, is an accident of history. It is an 
anachronistic accident that you would have thought would have been put 
aside within a few years after the District became the Nation's Capital 
in 1801.
  During the Revolutionary War when the Capital was Philadelphia, 
Revolutionary War soldiers marched on the Capitol, then in 
Philadelphia. They wanted their pensions, and they wanted funding. When 
the Founders saw these men marching on their Capitol, confusion 
reigned. Whom to turn to bring order? Who was going to protect the 
Capitol? Was it Philadelphia? Was it Pennsylvania? There certainly 
weren't any Federal police as yet.
  So what developed was fear that the Capital might find itself with 
that dilemma wherever it was located. Of course, that is not the case. 
The District is protected by 31 Federal police forces, and the D.C. 
National Guard and from the Capitol Police to the Park Police. I won't 
even name them all, there are so many of them.
  That is not to mention, and I already have said, of course, the 
National Guard, and if necessary, the Armed Forces of the United 
States. Remember, we are talking about a Federal Government in 
formation. We can understand that mistake then. What we cannot abide is 
that mistake being part of the denial to American citizens the same 
rights that others enjoy.

  Protection of the Federal sector is certainly not an issue, or the 
Federal sector and the Capital itself, more than two centuries later, 
is not an issue. But what should also not be an issue is that anybody, 
any resident, any American, would pay taxes and not be represented on 
this floor and in the Senate.
  As I stand here this evening, I represent almost 700,000 American 
citizens who have been put precisely in that position though--and this 
is a number to be remembered--they are number one per capita--number 
one--in taxes paid to support the Government of the United States.
  Thus, one of the oldest U.S. jurisdictions, the District of Columbia, 
is the most--indeed, the only--unequal jurisdiction, that pays taxes 
without full representation.
  To be sure, I vote in committee, and everybody knows that in the 
committees is where the primary work is done. But imagine the insult to 
the people I represent who pay huge taxes--$12,000 per person every 
year--that matters come up on this floor including matters affecting 
them, and nobody whom they have voted for can represent them on this 
floor.
  The D.C. budget was just in that continuing resolution that passed. 
What is it doing over here? Nobody in Congress looked at the D.C. 
budget. Nobody in this body except me would know what to do with the 
D.C. budget. But it has to come here to be passed along with the 
Federal budget.
  This is form without substance, Mr. Speaker. The sole reason that the 
D.C. budget comes here is for Members to try to overturn some of D.C.'s 
laws that they happen to disagree with. But, in a Federal Union, you 
can pass your laws. I don't like your laws, but you can't do anything 
about my laws--except if it is the District of Columbia.
  So I think I ought to call the roll on what the District has to abide 
from Members of this body and the Senate and why, on this 44th 
anniversary of the Home Rule Act, the District of Columbia is seeking 
to become the 51st State.
  Let's take guns. Senator Marco Rubio from Florida and Representative 
Tom Garrett from Virginia have a bill to eliminate all the District's 
gun laws.

                              {time}  1745

  It hasn't passed, and most of the bills I will speak of are pending 
but won't pass, because I have to spend a good deal of my time not only 
working affirmatively for what the District of Columbia wants, but for 
keeping bills like this from being passed.
  Imagine your Nation's Capital as a city where anybody can have a gun. 
The most controversial figures in the world come to your Nation's 
Capital. They eat in our restaurants. They stroll in our streets. You 
sometimes see that police stop traffic to let their cars pass in the 
street.
  We keep this City as safe as we can for ourselves, the 700,000 or so 
who live here, but also for the millions of people who come to do 
business or to have leisure or to see their iconic monuments.
  Representative Tom Massie from Kentucky has introduced a bill. We 
were able to keep it from being passed. But imagine this bill that 
would say that the District of Columbia had to recognize any and every 
concealed carry permit as long as you had it from another State.
  Some States have very strong concealed carry requirements. Others are 
very lax. Whatever your State has, just bring it into the District of 
Columbia.
  Mind you, this body, this Congress, my Republican colleagues have 
seen to it that you can't bring a gun into this Chamber. They want to 
be protected here, but they don't want to protect even their own 
constituents in the streets of the District of Columbia and in the 
hotels and restaurants of the District of Columbia.
  Senator Ted Cruz from Texas and Representative Mark Meadows of North 
Carolina have introduced a bill that would require the District of 
Columbia to use its own funds to send children to private schools. All 
you have to do is come and ask the District for it.
  There have been bills on this floor to allow private school 
vouchers--none of them have ever passed--but here come two Members 
wanting the District to give our local funds to anybody who wants to go 
to a private school.
  Are you joking?
  I am standing here to say that will never pass as long as I have 
anything to do with it.
  Senator James Lankford from Oklahoma and Representative Brad Wenstrup 
from Ohio have introduced a bill to wipe out the District's death with 
dignity law.
  That bill was actually passed in committee. It didn't get to the 
floor I think because there are six States that have such laws and two 
of them are States of our Republican leadership.
  This is a controversial bill, but other States have similar laws. It 
allows people to take their own lives if they follow a very strict 
protocol.
  You don't like it here?
  Well, you don't live here. You don't pay taxes here.
  President Trump's budget also had this provision.
  Again, these are pending, and I am telling you that most of them will 
not pass. But that is because I have had to fight them tooth and nail 
to keep them from passing. That is unfair to the District and it is an 
unfair use of my time.
  The Local Budget Autonomy Act that passed by 83 percent of the voters 
in the District of Columbia to keep our own local funds--we raise 
almost $8 billion on our own--from coming here for

[[Page H10409]]

no purpose except to attach amendments to overturn our laws.
  The Local Budget Autonomy Act still stands, but Congress has 
continued to appropriate the budget. ``Appropriate'' means simply pass 
it without looking at it, when it comes to the District of Columbia. 
Congress has not repealed the Local Budget Autonomy Act. I will stand 
firm to keep that from happening.
  We have been able to overcome attempts to overrule a D.C. law passed 
to protect private reproductive decisions. The District passed a law 
that prohibits discrimination within the District--it has nothing to do 
with the Congress--against any family because of the reproductive 
health choices of family members.
  What am I doing, what is Congress doing, what is the District doing 
even knowing what your reproductive choice is?
  What kind of Congress that believes in local control would so 
intrusively insert itself into such private matters?
  Here is another that was almost laughable. It is a wipes labeling 
bill.
  Representative Andy Harris from Maryland offered--and I thank him for 
withdrawing it--an amendment at markup. Representative Harris is a 
member of the Appropriations Committee. He would have prohibited the 
District from using its own funds to keep certain kinds of non-
flushable products from being sold in D.C.
  Pardon me, but what is Representative Harris doing in our toilets and 
sewers?
  To his credit, he did withdraw his proposed amendment.
  It was important to the District because these non-flushable 
materials stop up sewers. They are our sewers. It is our town. Stay out 
of our business.
  The marijuana matter. First, Congress tried to overturn the 
District's law that enables possession of a couple of ounces of 
marijuana. I was able to find a flaw in the proposed language. So the 
marijuana law still stands.
  But Congress keeps D.C. from commercializing marijuana, as is done in 
several States. I think there are eight States. It keeps D.C. from 
regulating marijuana further. That is dangerous. D.C. ought to be able 
to regulate marijuana to keep it out of the hands of children, for 
example.
  The interference of this body in the affairs of a local jurisdiction 
about which it knows nothing is not only outrageous on its face, but 
yes, it can be dangerous.
  The abortion rider or amendment comes annually. It keeps the District 
from spending its own local funds on abortions for low-income women, 
although there are upwards of 17 States that use local funds for 
abortions because they have the autonomy that we seek.

  Then, at the last minute this year, there was something that 
Representative Steve King decided that he had to do.
  You see, I think when Members intrude in D.C. affairs, they must not 
have enough to do, and I am calling on their constituents to watch 
them. If you have a Member that does what--and here I am going to 
indicate this one shortly, but the ones I have just spoken of--if they 
have a Member that spends his time writing laws about someone else's 
jurisdiction, they ought to call him to account.
  Representative Steve King is from Iowa. He introduced a bill that 
would make it a Federal crime to commit violence within the District in 
connection with a legitimate labor dispute.
  Well, maybe it ought to be a crime and there may be some Federal 
legislation that deals with this matter nationwide, but if not, and it 
takes place within the District of Columbia and there is a legitimate 
labor dispute and there is violence, we have got enough cops to take 
care of that, Representative King. We do not need this to be a Federal 
crime in D.C. alone.
  So, after calling the roll on those proposed anti-home rule 
provisions, let me indicate most of them I have been able to keep off 
of the D.C. appropriations bill, the only way they get them passed.
  It would be very difficult to get them passed by coming here, get the 
votes, and then go to the Senate and get the votes. So Members try the 
easy way: just attach it to the D.C. appropriations bill that should 
not be here in the first place.
  The budget matter really does gall us. More than 7 in 10 Americans 
believe that the District of Columbia should control its own budget. 
That is what this board graph shows. More than anything else, the 
American people guard their own money. That is why this is so 
important.
  Republicans pose as the champions of local control. In fact, they 
want the Federal Government out of much of its own Federal business and 
let the States and the localities handle it.
  How could they then abandon their cherished principles when it comes 
to the Nation's Capital?
  Look at these numbers, red and blue on this chart. The numbers show 
that Democrats and Republicans believe D.C. should control D.C.'s 
budget, slightly more in red or Republican States.
  I think numbers like that show that what I am saying about local 
control and about equality in this body represents the views of the 
American people. I defy anyone in this body to show differently.
  Ultimately, we recognize on this 44th anniversary of the signing of 
the Home Rule Act that there is no substitute for statehood.
  I should mention that Congress experimented with home rule for some 
time before the Home Rule Act was finally passed in 1973. It gave D.C. 
home rule in 1820. Sometimes it would take it back, and then try again. 
Imagine living in a city where they can take back your local control.
  To their credit, after the Civil War, the Republican Congress gave 
D.C. home rule and a Delegate. I am called a Delegate and a 
Congresswoman. They gave D.C. home rule. That version of home rule is 
precisely what D.C. has today. The 1973 Home Rule Act essentially is a 
replica of the home rule given to D.C. by the Republican Congress after 
the Civil War.
  How did we lose it?
  The Democrats, controlled by Southerners, took back home rule after 
Reconstruction and left the District for 100 years struggling to get 
back the self-government that the Republican Congress had given the 
District after the Civil War.
  This all started with Republicans. It ended with the Home Rule Act, 
Richard Nixon, and bipartisan support in the Congress.
  There is no substitute for being equal to the States. You can't have 
some second class citizens in the United States today, not in 21st 
century America.

                              {time}  1800

  We are seeking the major elements of statehood, even before we get 
statehood.
  For example, the District of Columbia government has actually shut 
down when the Federal Government is shut down, even though the D.C. 
budget is balanced and nobody in the Congress has even looked at it. I 
have now been able to get a bill every year that allows the District to 
stay open even if the Congress closes the Federal Government down.
  We don't know what will happen over in the Senate even today. We have 
just passed a continuing resolution--pitiful, though it was--to keep 
the government open for just a few more weeks. That passed this House. 
It has to pass the Senate. I can't take the chance that the District 
will close down for no reason except that the Congress doesn't know how 
to take care of its own business.
  I was finally able to convince the Congress to extricate the District 
from their fights to keep open, whatever you do to us--and you 
certainly haven't extricated us altogether because our budget still 
comes here. But you certainly don't mean to close down a big city like 
the District of Columbia, its budget, which handles vital matters like 
the police and keeping order.
  I don't mean to say that all Republicans have failed to see this. My 
hat is off to Representative Darrell Issa, who headed the committee 
that has jurisdiction over the District of Columbia.
  He called witnesses from the District of Columbia--the mayor, the 
city council chairman, the chief financial officer--on a routine 
hearing since, yes, Congress can do that. It rarely does. He heard--
even more important, he listened to--their testimony. And when he heard 
these officials from the District of Columbia testify about the 
financial condition of the District of Columbia, its reserves, that its 
growth

[[Page H10410]]

was among the best in the Nation, Representative Issa--listened.
  Maybe you don't think Members of Congress are always listening to 
your testimony. He was listening to this testimony. Because after 
hearing that testimony, Representative Issa from California endorsed 
D.C. budget autonomy, and he has worked tirelessly with local officials 
and with me to secure the autonomy of the District's budget so it 
wouldn't come to Congress.
  I haven't asked him, but he may not be for statehood, and I doubt 
that he is. He is a Republican. But I think he understands, perhaps 
better than most of his colleagues, that no one has any business, in a 
Federal public handling somebody's local budget in this Chamber, and I 
will be forever grateful.
  I want to say my thanks, as well, to former Representative Tom Davis, 
who resigned from the Congress a few years ago, and was instrumental in 
helping the District get votes for a vote for D.C. in the House and in 
the Senate. That bill, the D.C. Voting Rights Act, actually passed the 
House and passed the Senate.
  So why don't we have at least the vote in the House now? The reason 
is that the National Rifle Association convinced some Members to place 
an amendment that would have wiped out all of the District's gun laws; 
and, therefore, the residents of the District of Columbia, after 
helping me for years to achieve their first vote on this floor, had to 
leave that vote on the table.
  I will be forever grateful to Representative Tom Davis for his help.
  Now, what kind of jurisdiction are we talking about? It is very 
important for us to remember that we are talking about a city with a 
$14 billion budget, which is larger than the budget of 12 States. Why 
shouldn't D.C., therefore, have statehood like those States?
  We are talking about a city that has a $2.5 billion surplus. That is 
the envy of the States. Ask my colleagues how many of them have a 
surplus that large.
  The per capita income of the people I represent is higher than that 
of any State.
  Now, that is an interesting figure that should be explained. There 
are many poor people in the District of Columbia, but there are many 
high earners, too; and when you put them together, that is one of the 
reasons you get the highest per capita taxes paid. That is why you get 
$12,000 per year in Federal taxes from D.C. residents.
  The personal income of the people I represent is higher than that of 
seven States; the per capita of personal consumption in expenditures is 
higher than that of any State; and the total personal consumption 
expenditures are greater than those of seven States. This is a very 
productive, a very hardworking city that pays its own way and 
contributes, as well, mightily to our country. And Americans understand 
that because the District is attracting residents in large numbers.
  We have had, in this city, a 15.3 percent increase in residents since 
the last census. That becomes, on a monthly basis, 800 new residents 
coming to live in your Nation's Capital every month--almost 700,000, a 
larger population today than Wyoming and then Vermont, but these 
States, they have two Senators. They have the same number of 
Representatives as the District of Columbia--one.
  If the truth be told, the District is about the same in population as 
seven States. Those seven States have two Senators each and one 
Representative who votes on this floor. They and I are equivalent in 
every respect except, of course, for the taxes per capita D.C. 
residents pay, and yet they have the vote. Notwithstanding that the 
District is number one per capita in taxes District residents pay, 
those seven States have the congressional vote and we do not.
  This week, in fact, just today, we passed a new tax bill. So imagine 
how the residents I represent feel about a new tax bill. They are going 
to end up paying more taxes because SALT, the State and local tax 
deduction, has been capped. It has been with us for almost 100 years. 
So instead of taxation without representation, my constituents will 
have double taxation, at least when it comes to that particular matter, 
the State and local taxes, double taxation without representation.

  So when the bell rang for the tax vote, I did not come down because I 
could not vote for the citizens of the District of Columbia. When there 
are votes on this floor for matters involving our military and life and 
death, I do not come down because I cannot vote.
  Still, I remember the purple fingers from the citizens of Iraq and 
Afghanistan, where they not only were signifying that they had voted, 
but they were signifying who gave them the vote: members of the 
military from the United States, including members from the District of 
Columbia, who have fought and died in every war since the war that 
created the United States of America.
  District residents have overpaid for the equal citizenship they seek, 
and this chart illustrates it tragically:
  World War I, 635 District of Columbia residents lost their lives in 
that war. That was a figure greater than three different States.
  World War II--that was a big one--3,573 District of Columbia 
residents lost their lives. That was five times greater than the 
District's losses in World War I, and it was greater than losses in 
four different States.
  Moving on to the Korean war, 547 District residents lost their lives. 
That figure was greater than the loss of life by the military in eight 
different States.
  And finally, the Vietnam war, 243 casualties in that war. That was a 
figure greater than 10 different States.
  All told, this city, which is a relatively small city, has had almost 
200,000 residents serve in the military, and that is only since World 
War I. I hasten to add that there has never been a war--and I have not 
counted the 19th century wars--there has never been a war where the 
residents of your Nation's Capital were not among those who fought and 
died.
  Now, I must ask if there is any Member of Congress who would stand 
for the Federal Government dictating a local budget or her local 
matters coming to the House floor after showing what I have shown here 
this evening about the District of Columbia. Maybe there will be some 
understanding of why we must protest and resist the treatment of the 
District of Columbia until the District is given the equality to States 
by becoming the 51st State.
  As I have indicated, it is impossible to lay our present predicament 
on the Framers of our Constitution. Remember, they went to war, it is 
they who gave us the slogan of ``taxation without representation.'' 
They were willing to die, to commit treason, largely because they were 
paying taxes to the crown and had no representation. How can we 
possibly lay the present predicament of the District on the Framers? It 
is not them. It is on us today.

                              {time}  1815

  In the 21st century, Congress cannot continue to ask the residents of 
the Nation's Capital to watch democracy in operation for everybody else 
except them.
  If a matter involves the District of Columbia and has to come before 
us, then everybody gets to vote on that matter except the 
Representative of the District of Columbia. You can't justify that 
alongside American principles, given how much in Federal taxes the 
people I represent pay, given their sons and daughters who have always 
gone to war for their country, all of that without a vote in the House 
and the Senate required by consent of the government.
  Well, we have two choices, but when you think about it, we have only 
one. Congress can continue to exercise autocratic authority over the 
American citizens who live in their own Nation's Capital, treating 
them--if I may quote the words of the great Frederick Douglass, whose 
bicentennial we will be celebrating in 2018 (who was a resident of this 
City), and who said our country was ``Treating the District and its 
citizens as aliens, not citizens, but subjects.''
  We are not subjects. We are American citizens. The only alternative 
today is to live up to the Nation's promise and ideals and pass the 
Washington, D.C. Admission Act to make the residents of your Nation's 
Capital equal by affording them the right to live in the 51st State of 
the Union of States called the United States of America.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

[[Page H10411]]

  

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