[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 161 (Friday, September 28, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H9398-H9402]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
D.C. STATEHOOD
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, it is probably appropriate that you will be
hearing on this last full day before the midterms about statehood for
the District of Columbia. I am going to speak about why that is the
appropriate way for us to go into midterms, as I represent 700,000
Americans who are number one--please remember this number--number one
in taxes paid to support the Federal Government, but also have the
distinction of having no final vote on this House floor and having no
representation in the Senate of the United States.
It is very clear--if you want a history lesson, I am not going to
offer that lesson in the time allotted to me this afternoon--but it is
absolutely clear
[[Page H9399]]
that the Framers and the Founders of our country did not go to war with
the slogan of ``Taxation Without Representation'' in order to allow
that slogan to apply everywhere but in their Nation's Capital.
For that reason, we want to thank the Democrats, almost the full
caucus, who have already become cosponsors of the D.C. statehood bill.
I hasten to add that I do not yet have my Republican friends. I
believe that will occur. Meanwhile, Democrats have to plow ahead.
I must thank my colleagues for the support they have given me,
because we are very close to 100 percent here in the House on our DC
statehood bill.
I have to offer my thanks as well to Senator Tom Carper, because he
is the lead sponsor in the Senate, and he has gotten more than 60
percent of the Democrats in the Senate to support D.C. statehood.
If I could mention the last Democrat before we go home--and there
will still be time before the end of this session for the few who
remain off the bill--I do want to thank Eric Swalwell, because he is
the last one before we go home. I had sent out a message: Don't go home
without signing for D.C. statehood. He heard that message.
There will be a few stragglers. I mention stragglers because when I
meet people who aren't on the bill, they say: Oh, my goodness, I
thought I was on the bill.
So that doesn't mean that because we don't have 100 percent, we can't
get 100 percent. It just means Members overlook it and haven't yet come
onto the bill. So we will get to you before the end of the 115th
Congress.
I also want to explain, particularly since we don't have Republican
cosponsors yet, that signing onto the bill is going to help the
District of Columbia, in any case, because we are the first to concede,
with no Republican sponsors yet, that D.C. statehood is an uphill
climb.
I am here today to say we are prepared to make that climb. I think we
are showing that, as I so indicate.
Getting cosponsors is going to help us in the next Congress. We are
almost sure it is going to help us to get what the Congress can give us
now, even without statehood, as more people awaken to the injustice of
Americans who don't have democratic representation--a small ``d''--in
their Congress.
{time} 1330
It is going to help us get incrementally to statehood. For example,
the District's local laws, even its final budget raised entirely in the
District of Columbia, have to come here and be signed off by the
Congress.
That is an insult to us, frankly. Most Members aren't interested,
don't know anything about DC's local laws or budgets. A waste of time.
That is the kind of thing that, even without statehood, I think we
can get in the short run and getting more cosponsors for statehood can
only help us get that.
I do want to mention what my colleagues already know. There is not a
poll, not a single poll, that does not show that Democrats will, in
fact, be in the majority in the next Congress. That means, at the very
least, the uphill climb will begin, even if statehood is not around the
corner.
If ever there was an incentive for District residents to keep going
in the streets, going around the Congress to get statehood co-sponsors,
this chart shows it. This chart illustrates what I have just said about
the District of Columbia's paying the highest Federal taxes in the
United States.
If you live in California, to name a big State, if you live in New
York--and I can go down the line--we do have a chart that shows where
each State ranks. They are all beneath the District of Columbia.
What am I talking about? Almost $12,000 per resident in taxes paid by
the people I represent to support the government that does not give
them full representation.
I don't have all the States listed here, but you can see how the line
goes down until it gets to Mississippi, which has the lowest Federal
taxes, whose citizens pay the lowest Federal taxes in the United
States. Yet Mississippi has two Senators, I don't remember how many
Representatives, paying far lower taxes to support the Federal
Government than the Americans I represent, yet they have full
representation in the House and the Senate.
So, some may say, well, you've got 700,000 residents. Is that a lot
of people? It is more residents than two of the States. Vermont and
Wyoming each has one Representative, just like D.C., except that
Representative can vote on this floor, and two Senators. But Vermont
and Wyoming are representative of about seven States in the United
States that have about the same number of residents as the District of
Columbia.
I picked these two out only because they rank below DC. We are equal
in population or near equal in population to seven States.
Perhaps it can be understood when you see that ranking, not to
mention the ranking on per capita taxes, why we seek statehood for the
District of Columbia.
This is not the first time I have sought statehood. I did so when I
first came to the Congress. In 1993, I got the first and only vote on
statehood. Let me tell you the results of that vote and why it is
important that that threshold has been laid.
I was new to the House, and even the most fervent advocates for
statehood did not predict that the vote would be 153 for statehood, 277
against. So I come, candidly, to tell you that we have gone on the
floor for statehood before, and we didn't get it.
Indeed, only 40 percent of the Democrats supported us. How could that
be when you say, Congresswoman Norton, that you have almost all of the
Democrats now on the bill? The difference, of course, is that it was a
very different Congress.
For 40 years, the Democrats had control of the Congress, and that was
in no small part because of Southern Democrats.
By the way, Southern Democrats voted with the District on many, many
bills. And in many ways, I would welcome them back. But, of course,
they were more conservative Democrats than the Democrats now in the
House.
Democrats fully recognize that when we get the majority--and I say
``when'' and not ``if,'' because I fully expect we will have the
majority in the next Congress--that there will be some Democrats who
are more conservative than I am and perhaps than the average Member of
the House, and that is to be expected, if you want to be in the
majority.
So I am not lamenting that we got only 40 percent in that first and
only statehood vote. I am trying to make the case how votes come and
why they come. We were very proud of that vote, because it was many
more than had been predicted. There was dancing in the House galleries
up there because the vote came far above what the press was predicting
the District was going to get and what even the District and its
residents were predicting.
I hasten to add that, as I have already shown, the District is
already a State in all but name and representation in this Congress.
For example, when time comes for appropriation, unlike the
territories--and I do want to distinguish us from the territories--they
are our sisters in many ways, but Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin
Islands, and the rest don't pay Federal income taxes, so note that
difference. Some of them--in fact, almost none of them have come
forward to request statehood.
There is now some interest in statehood by Puerto Rico. But the
reason that most of the territories don't come forward and ask for
statehood is very clear. There is a quid pro quo for them. In exchange
for not paying Federal taxes, they don't have the votes in Congress. We
pay Federal taxes, and we have no vote in Congress, making us unique in
the union.
So, my friends, or at least virtually all my friends, in the
territories don't even ask for statehood. Sometimes they say, yes, we
want statehood, but they understand that, for them, it is more
difficult.
It is certainly true that, this late in the history of the United
States, one has to wonder why the word ``territory'' is there and to
hope for equality for the residents of the territories. That has to be
up to them, so I don't come here to speak for them. I only want for
them to be treated equally with other Americans.
When I say the District is already a State in ways that many count as
[[Page H9400]]
States, I even point to how the House does its appropriation. The
District gets a per capita appropriation, in other words, based on our
population. So if our population is 700,000, we will get the same as
others who have that population.
It is not true for the territories. Their basic complaint is that
they do get Federal funding, but they don't get the per capita funding
that States get.
There is a reason D.C. gets that per capita funding. It is because of
tax funding we give to support our government.
So the government has recognized the District's contributions in some
ways. It simply has not given us the representation that a democratic
country owes all its citizens.
Some may believe that the reason the District does not have statehood
is that it needs help from the Federal Government. Far from it. It is
the District that helps the Federal Government because of the strength
of the city's local economy. That local economy outstrips in its
strength many of the local economies of the States.
For example, the District's own local budget is more than $12
billion. That is larger than the budget of 12 States that already have
full representation in this Congress. These days it is hard to find a
sizable surplus in the States, but the District's surplus is almost
$200 billion. That is money that the District puts away in taxes and
other revenue it gets, mostly from its own citizens. That would make
it, just that surplus, the envy of the country.
The District's per capita income is higher than the per capita income
of any State. This is not a poor city asking for help from the Federal
Government. This is a city that helps the Federal Government with taxes
paid without representation.
That taxation without representation is, of course, the largest
grievance. But it is also true that Republicans, who fancy themselves
the local control party in the Congress, try their very best here in
the House and in the Senate to take away what home rule or self-
government that the District now has.
The District, in 1974, after almost 100 years, got the right to elect
its own Mayor and city council. The last time it had that right,
Republicans were in charge right after the Civil War when the
Republicans gave the District what we call home rule.
It is Democrats who took away that local self-government. It is the
Democrats, my party, who were in charge most of the years we were
without local government, that took it away. Many of them were more
conservative or Southern Democrats. But there is no escaping that they
were Democrats, and they were often in control of this House.
So, Republicans who come to this floor on both sides to argue even
against Federal intervention even that is authorized by the
Constitution and by Federal law. Isn't it amazing that the party of
local control would persistently interfere with the local control that
the District of Columbia has had since 1973, but that is what we see.
I just want to cite not all but to give examples of some of this
interference and to indicate why I think this interference takes place,
because it doesn't take place as to the laws of the District of
Columbia. What this does mean is that the Congress uses the fact that
the District does not have statehood to intrude itself to try to
overturn some laws in the District of Columbia that they happen to
disagree with.
{time} 1345
Now, the District of Columbia is a big city. Like most big cities,
even within the States, it is more progressive than other parts of our
country.
So, although they have nothing to gain, Republicans try to make
political points back home by intruding and trying to take away laws
passed by the D.C. Council. I want to give examples of some of those
laws and even to indicate some of the Members who helped me get rid of
the attempts to overturn our laws.
For example, our laws that have legalized recreational marijuana,
that makes D.C. one of nine jurisdictions. Now, that is controversial,
but the Congress has done nothing about those States that have departed
from Federal law and legalized marijuana. The Republican Congress has
done nothing about it.
But each and every Congress, the Congress keeps the District of
Columbia from commercializing marijuana. I say ``commercializing''
because those States are now taxing marijuana. Marijuana is consumed
everywhere in the United States. Nobody gets arrested for it anymore.
So these States have simply said, ``What is pro forma law shall be
law, and we will tax marijuana.'' Well, the District of Columbia passed
a law to legalize marijuana, and Republicans made an attempt to
undermine that law, simply erase it. They were not very smart in the
way they did it, and, thus, 2 ounces of marijuana is still legal to
possess in the District of Columbia.
And it is interesting that, as marijuana laws have become more
widespread in the United States, Republicans have not come back and
attempted, yet again, to overturn our marijuana law.
The reason that the District was adamant about our marijuana law is
the enormous disparities between who got arrested for marijuana
offenses, which are misdemeanors but give you a record. They turned out
to be largely African Americans. So we did not have the usual
recreational marijuana reason for wanting to legalize marijuana. We had
an additional reason of great importance to our city.
Republicans failed to overturn the law, but they left us without the
ability to commercialize marijuana, and look what that has done. That
means that as The Washington Post reported--and we call them
``riders.'' ``This amendment is a ``license,'' quoting a drug dealer,
for me to print money.'' Some call it the ``Drug Dealer Protection
Act'' because, with no ability to commercialize marijuana, the drug
dealers have not gone out of business here as they have in the States
that have legalized and commercialized marijuana.
I want to name just a few other examples. We have a bill. Only one
State--and two other localities have similar bills. It is called the
``Reproductive Health Nondiscrimination Act.'' It says that you can't
discriminate against one of your own employees or families based on the
reproductive health decisions they make.
The Republicans are deep into the business of individuals by looking
at such matters. For example, firing or declining to hire a woman for
having had an abortion, even if it was due to rape--and maybe that is
why they knew about it in the first place because I don't understand
how you could even know about such private business--or declining to
hire a woman for using in vitro fertilization.
Now, the reason that you have the District of Columbia and two other
cities with similar laws is there have been some matters brought to the
attention of their local legislature. This is an amendment, unlike the
marijuana commercialization law, that I have been able to get removed,
but it is an example of one that continues to come back.
One of the most troubling is the District's abortion law. Mr.
Speaker, 17 States use their own local funds on abortion for poor
women. Federal funds for abortions have long been barred by the
Congress, so these 17 States spend their own funds, except for the
District of Columbia, which to this day cannot do so. There is a local
nonprofit organization which helps women because of this amendment, but
you can see what I mean about intruding in the most private of affairs.
I am not asking people to support the choices made by the District of
Columbia. I am certainly not asking the Congress to do that. I am
asking Congress to get out of our lives, to give us equality by our own
citizens in choosing our laws, however controversial.
Another example that is controversial--and I point this out because
our laws sometimes are controversial and because other States have
passed similarly controversial laws. It is called, ``D.C.'s Death with
Dignity Act.''
The Congress has tried to bar, unsuccessfully, the District law that
is law in six other States that allows self-administered lethal
medication for people who have 6 months to live and who doctors have
said are in such terrible pain or misery that these people, not the
doctors, should be allowed to give themselves a lethal medication.
[[Page H9401]]
Talking about a private matter. I don't know where most Americans
stand on this. I am told that most approve it, by the way. But I know
where the people I represent stand, and I know it is up to them and
only them, and it offers another reason why we fight for statehood.
Look, I have been able to keep this attempt to take away our law, our
D.C. Death with Dignity Law from, in fact, becoming law. But it does
give you an indication of the kind of continual fight that has to be
made here for the District of Columbia, and this is in addition for all
the work that I, like other Members, have to do on the national bills,
the bills that are legitimately introduced in this House.
I suppose at least one more ought to be mentioned. How could I not?
That is, the District has a local budget autonomy law. Republicans
tried to abolish it. It gives the District the ability to have its
local law go into effect without coming here to the Congress where they
do nothing about it except try to use it as a bill allowing them to
attach what we call ``riders.''
If you want to do an amendment, there has to be a bill. So they want
our budget over here so that they can do amendments like the one I just
discussed on marijuana. Well, we want to get rid of that by giving the
District budget autonomy so that its local laws will not have to come
here in the first place.
The Congress has tried to overturn the budget autonomy law and has
been unsuccessful. The District went to court. The court said our local
budget autonomy law was, in fact, constitutional and legal. Although
the Congress has not overturned it--and we are grateful for that--the
Congress does pass a law saying the District's local budget is now law
anyway.
So you see how redundant that is? They don't do anything about it,
but they pass a provision and say, ``We made it law. DC says it is
already law.'' But, you see, until we get to the point where they don't
have anything to say about our local budget, we will not be the equal
of the States.
What makes all of this interference particularly painful to the
District of Columbia is how the District is viewed by those who have no
axe to grind, and the best examples of those would be the rating
agencies. For example, Moody's has given the District a AAA rating. I
would like to quote what Moody's says about the District of Columbia
and its economy and how its government is run.
``The dynamism of the District's economy has led to the largest
population in 40 years and strong growth in the tax base. Financial
governance''--I repeat the words--``Financial governance is exemplary.
Reserves are robust.''
Talking about people who have nothing to gain except seeing it as the
data reports it. That was Moody's speaking about how the District's
financial governance rates.
Let me quote Standard & Poor's. Here is what Standard & Poor's has to
say. This is very important because it is a critique, in effect, of
this Congress. By the way, they have given DC a AAA rating.
``We continue to have concerns about the role of the Federal
Government in future District budgets. We view this as an ongoing
factor that has a negative effect on the District's finances and as a
slight offset to the District's otherwise very strong management
practices.''
In effect, what Standard & Poor's is saying is it costs the District
money--money in how the District pays--and I use that word advisedly--
the District pays in dollars and cents because of congressional
interference. And how the Congress interferes affects how investors
view the District's economy.
{time} 1400
It is a price to be paid, literally, in dollars and cents by the
residents of the District of Columbia.
Now, I do not want to be misunderstood. I do not stand here and say,
if you don't give us statehood, there is nothing we can do. But I do
want to illustrate what we have to do. Yes, we have been successful
sometimes in being treated equally with the States.
For example, just look at last year. We had to defeat 15 attempts to
overturn the District's local laws. There were three attempts that we
had to defeat to eliminate the District's gun safety laws. This is the
District of Columbia, where there are Members of the House and Senate,
like Senator Marco Rubio, who continues to put in a bill that would
eliminate every single gun law in the District of Columbia.
Imagine what that would mean in the Nation's Capital here, where some
of the most controversial figures in the country and the world are seen
on our streets, in our restaurants, and public places, if anybody can
come in with a gun.
Well, we have tight gun laws in this town. I have had to fight very
hard, and, yes, we have succeeded even without statehood. That is no
argument against statehood. That reinforces the notion that we need
statehood because those things should not have happened, should not
have taken my time on the floor or the time of residents to come here
to say, please, don't do this to us.
There is another favorite of the Republicans: to put private school
vouchers on the District of Columbia. Let me indicate why that is
particularly outrageous. The District of Columbia does, in fact, have
its public school system, and it has an almost equal number of students
in what are called charter schools, which are not a part of the D.C.
public schools. DC has done that on their own.
When the education bill comes before the Congress, and a national
charter school bill is, in fact, on the floor, some Members of Congress
vote against charter schools while others favor them, except there are
Members who don't have charter schools.
We have charter schools. We have improved our public schools as well,
but they are our public schools. They are paid for by our tax dollars.
However, there is always an education bill that has private school
vouchers in it that we very much oppose private school vouchers because
the jurisdiction has no control on how well the children are even doing
in those schools. We do have that kind of control over how well
children are doing in charter schools and in public schools. But if
they go to any private schools--and some of these private schools are
fly-by-night schools, but even those that are not are private and,
therefore, not subject to regulation and oversight.
So, when vouchers are a part of the education bill that comes before
us every few years, vouchers for schools in the United States, that
bill is voted down every time. So that makes the District of Columbia
the only jurisdiction that does have private school vouchers; and we do
have school vouchers, but they are for a very small number of students
because most students choose our charter schools and our public
schools.
As I speak, I hope I will be successful. I believe I will be
successful again in getting D.C. tuition access grants.
Now, DC is unusual because the District does not have a university
system. It simply has one public university. I have been able to get
tuition assistance grants so that our youngsters go to universities and
colleges in every State, all 50 States. And it is interesting, I do
have a lot of support for this bill because there is not a Member that
doesn't have D.C. students going to college in their States.
The Federal Government pays for the difference between what the
student pays and the higher cost that would otherwise be charged as
out-of-state tuition, DC students pay the same in-state tuition, and
that has been a help. And it is help from the Federal Government, and
it is supported by many Members in this Congress who know that their
own public universities have benefited from it.
I don't maintain that we don't get anything from the Federal
Government. I have already indicated that we get the same per capita as
the states, and I don't indicate that if I don't have statehood I can't
get any bills passed. People will come to the District of Columbia
today and they will find, on both waterfronts, the Southeast
waterfront, the Southwest waterfront--the Southeast waterfront is
called Capital Riverfront; the Southwest waterfront, The Wharf. There
are, essentially, whole new neighborhoods on those waterfronts. And,
yes, I got those without statehood.
But I dare Republicans to say, well, since you can get things like
that for your District without statehood, what are you crying about? I
am crying
[[Page H9402]]
about taxes without representation is what I am crying about.
Yes, I know we can get funds, for example, for things my legislation
for the Arlington Memorial Bridge, which brings people from the south
to the Nation's Capital.
Yes, I am grateful that, even in a Republican Congress, I have been
able to get the Wharf bill passed. I have been able to get the
Southeast waterfront bill, or Capital Riverfront as it is called,
passed, that we got money for the Arlington Memorial Bridge.
And I bring those up because I don't want to hear, well, if you are
able to get things done, what is your problem?
My problem is what I have been discussing here. It is undoing what
our city has done, undemocratically, and it is failure to give us the
same representation in the Congress of the United States as every other
taxpaying American.
Yes, sometimes I have to do the very unusual. There is a tax bill,
for example, that just went through here. It is interesting to note it
is not very popular with the American people, and I certainly was
against it. I couldn't vote for it or against it.
But if there is a bill going through here and I can find a way to get
my District in it, I am going to try and get in it. So there are parts
of this bill that promote incentives and investment in some of our low-
income parts of the city, that promote private and affordable housing
in the District of Columbia, so I am in the tax bill.
But I opposed the tax bill. In that way, I am like many other
Democrats who voted ``no'' on this floor but, yet, tried to get in the
bill and did get in the bill. That is how the Congress works.
Finally, nothing makes the case for D.C. statehood better than this
chart showing the District war casualties in the 20th century when we
fought our major wars: in World War I, more casualties than three
States. Korean War, by that time it had gone up to more casualties than
8 States. By World War II, we were seeing more casualties than four
States. Remember, the District is smaller than most States. And the
Vietnam War, perhaps the very worst, more casualties than 10 States.
Since then, we have eliminated the draft, but this chart and these
tombstones make the best case for equal treatment for the residents of
the District of Columbia. Even as I speak, the residents of this city
have volunteered and serve in a volunteer army.
These statistics illustrate the United States when we had a draft. So
we don't have a draft now, and, yet, District residents are found in
every part of the country--forgive me--every part of the world where
our troops are.
It is time that our country recognized our city and its residents
and, particularly, those who now serve, those who served before them,
and those who have died in service of their country.
We are now in the 21st century. It seems impossible we have gotten
here: 217 years since the District of Columbia has been the Nation's
Capital; 217 years of inequality in your own country; 217 years of
paying taxes without representation; 217 years of going to war without
benefit of equal treatment even by those who served.
This is why, for those reasons, the residents, the American citizens
I represent, cannot possibly give up on seeking equal treatment: first,
by perfecting what is called home rule, or self-government; but
certainly, by becoming a State like every other State, by no longer
being treated, as Frederick Douglass said, as aliens, not citizens, but
subjects.
We are Americans. That is why we insist that the American citizens in
the District of Columbia become citizens of the 51st State of the
United States of America.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
____________________