[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.

                          ____________________