[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 15]
[House]
[Pages 20286-20289]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     CONGRESS: DON'T TREAD ON D.C.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Hartzler). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 5, 2011, the gentlewoman from the District 
of Columbia (Ms. Norton) is recognized for 30 minutes.
  Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I rise to speak about a possible set of 
events that will, I think, astound the American people. Most, by now, 
would agree that a shutdown of the government is a very bad idea. A 
shutdown of the government is a worse idea for the American people. But 
if you want to hear the worst of the worst, by far, it is shutting down 
a local government which is not involved in your national fight. That 
is what could happen as the first session of the 112th Congress closes 
out and leaves its signature on American history.
  The District of Columbia's local budget, raised in the city, a budget 
larger than the budget of some States--thanks to the taxpayers of the 
city--nevertheless, has to be approved by the Congress. It was approved 
by the District of Columbia months ago, even approved by the Financial 
Services appropriations subcommittee months

[[Page 20287]]

ago. But here it sits because most of the appropriations have not been 
approved by the Congress of the United States.
  No wonder District of Columbia residents have informed our office 
that they will be here tomorrow to speak for themselves because, Madam 
Speaker, taxation without representation is bad enough. In fact, it was 
considered so outrageous that our Forefathers went to war over this 
very notion.

                              {time}  1610

  Taxation without representation, followed by confiscation of a local 
government's judgment on how it ought to spend its own money, is un-
American and should be unacceptable anywhere in the world except, of 
course, authoritarian governments.
  So here I am again. I was on the floor just a few months ago on this 
very same issue, and doesn't it say everything about this Congress this 
year. The Republicans have had a year to learn since they took control 
of the House. They are very slow learners because for the third time we 
face a possible government shutdown, and we face the possible shutdown 
of a local government that is not in this fight and has passed its own 
local, balanced budget.
  No forward movement. No forward movement for the District of Columbia 
and no forward movement for the country. We are embroiled in the same 
fights because one side, my friends on the other side of the aisle, 
have decided that a legislative body is one in which one side takes 
all. The whole notion that we come from diverse and different parts of 
the country and will have to find a meeting of the minds on issue after 
issue has fled from this Chamber.
  So we see it not only with respect to my district, which is caught in 
this fight, a fight not of its making, a fight from which it cannot 
extricate itself, a fight out of which it cannot negotiate itself. We 
see this happening as if there were no past history to inform us not to 
do this again.
  We don't know if we'll be home for Christmas. We don't know if the 
government will be shut down. We don't know if there will be a payroll 
tax holiday, desperately needed by everybody who works in the District 
of Columbia and in the United States.
  And we don't know whether there will be unemployment insurance for 
everybody who lost their jobs and can't find a job. And let me get this 
right because this is quite astounding. For every four people looking 
for a job today, there is one opening. That, of course, is because you 
have to do two things when you find yourself in the predicament that 
the President found himself in when he entered the White House. You've 
got to find a way to grow your economy with some spending in the short 
term, and you have to find a way to cut spending and tax yourself in 
the long term. Of course, the other side understands the cutting side. 
They don't care, apparently, if the economy goes down the drain because 
they are about to recess without ever having come before this Chamber 
with a jobs bill to grow the economy.
  This Republican House has no major legislation to show for a year's 
worth of work. It has been off on side issues; and one of those side 
issues has been the District of Columbia, into whose business it has no 
business entering, taking the city's vote, the vote that the city had 
in the Committee of the Whole, on the very first day as the first item 
of business and then piling on with a set of amendments designed to 
intrudes on the city's right to govern itself and to spend its own 
local funds as every local government does, as those who elect it 
locally have insisted.
  So I had to yesterday call the Mayor of the District of Columbia, 
once again, and say I don't see any way out of a possible close-down 
for the District of Columbia if the Federal Government closes down. And 
while he found it unbelievable after the Congress now has the lowest 
rating in memory that they would even consider a close-down, 
nevertheless he has got to take the preparations that the federal 
government takes and is now taking when a close-down becomes a 
possibility.
  The Home Rule Act gave the District of Columbia control over its 
local laws and its local funds with the caveat that they were to pass 
through here and pass by. That's literally what it is, a pass-by in the 
Congress. This has become more than a pass-by. It has become an 
occasion to encumber the District of Columbia with the views and the 
laws of Members of Congress, not elected from the District of Columbia, 
not responsible to the District of Columbia.
  So the do-nothing 112th House has no major bill to its credit, no 
signature to take home; but it does leave an infamous signature that it 
was able to bully a medium-sized city in America because of some 
leftover jurisdiction over its local affairs. No wonder that there is 
palpable harm to the residents of this city. If you have the right to 
bully, just like the bully in the school yard, they are going to bully.
  But I come to the floor this evening to say that we will never let an 
occasion where Congress intrudes on our rights as American citizens go 
by without calling you on it. We may go down, but we will go down 
fighting. We will not go silently into the night.
  Once again, on a controversial issue, the House has insisted that the 
District of Columbia be forbidden to spend its own local funds on 
abortion services for local women in the District of Columbia. The 
operative word here is ``local.'' Over and over again, I will say 
local: local money, local women. No business of the Congress.
  I can understand the strong feelings on this issue. Indeed, I respect 
them. What I do not respect is your imposing your strong feelings on a 
jurisdiction not your own, on a jurisdiction over which you have no 
moral jurisdiction.
  And so despite the District's own view that our most vulnerable women 
need the same access to all reproductive services as other 
jurisdictions have, even if they have to spend their own local money, 
and many do, even if you are willing to spend your own local money, 
Congress is not going to let the District spend its own local money. My 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle, these Tea Party Republicans 
who came here talking about federalism, have been the first to violate 
the first principle of federalism.
  We are not here talking about local laws alone, my friends, we are 
talking about local money, money raised in the District of Columbia. 
Not a penny of it from this Chamber. By what right do you tell us 
anything about how to spend that money, particularly when that money is 
spent legally and constitutionally? How do you square that with your 
Tea Party principles?
  They tried on another issue as well. We were able to stop that one. 
For 10 years this Congress kept the District from spending its own 
local funds on needle exchange programs used all over the country, 
albeit with local funds, even though over and over again in test after 
test, it has been found that well-run needle exchange programs keep 
people from spreading HIV and AIDS.

                              {time}  1620

  In big cities where there are drug addicts, you will find that as 
many as one-third of those who contract this virus do so through 
needles; someone who has the virus then has relations with someone who 
doesn't but doesn't know the other has the virus, and quickly the virus 
is spread. It is important to note that every health organization and 
every scientific organization has recommended needle exchange programs 
as a way to control AIDS, and they've done so based on the scientific 
evidence.
  Down the road, our sister city, Baltimore, a much poorer city, has a 
better HIV/AIDS rate than the District of Columbia because Baltimore 
has been spending its own local funds, the way most big cities have, 
for needle exchange now for decades. Because we were a decade without 
the ability to do that--because some Members of this House decided they 
did not want us to do it, they took the lives of--they took the lives 
of--residents of the District of Columbia and actively participated in 
the spread of the virus.
  Who are they to tell us in our jurisdiction how we must attend to the 
health of our own local residents? What

[[Page 20288]]

do they know about it? By what rights do they come to their mandate, 
regardless of the consequences, to tell us or any other local 
jurisdiction what must be done or what we must do? Does the word 
``democracy'' fall out of the English language when it comes to the 
people who live in the Nation's Capital? How do we put it back in? Does 
the mayor of the city, does the entire city council have to keep being 
arrested in order to make the point, with this picture sent all around 
the world showing what a lie ``democracy'' can be in our country?
  If the 112th House didn't learn that you don't raise taxes on the 
middle class, if they didn't learn that those who are unemployed should 
have unemployment insurance, I don't know why I expect them to learn 
how they should treat the 600,000 residents who live in the District of 
Columbia.
  I see that I've been joined on the floor by a good friend and 
colleague, and I want to thank Mr. Ellison for coming to the floor and 
yield time to him at this time.
  Mr. ELLISON. Let me thank the gentlelady from Washington, D.C.
  The message I have is very short. It's based on a group of young 
people who visited me in my office today, all from Washington, D.C. And 
they are on a hunger strike and have not eaten any solid food for 8 
days. I promised them that I would not eat, either, starting tonight, 
and will not eat for 24 hours in solidarity with their struggle. They 
asked me to read a statement.
  The statement reads as follows: ``Occupy The Vote D.C.
  D.C. needs representation: Fast.
  Occupy the vote. Corrynf@occupydc
.org.
  To: Those in Congress with a vote.
  Regarding: Full democracy for the citizens of D.C.
  Since its creation, our Capital, the bastion of American democracy, 
has been handicapped from responding to the will of its citizens. 
Despite paying taxes to the Federal Government and sending our citizens 
to fight and die in every war, Washingtonians have had no voting 
representation in Congress, and have had to seek approval from people 
they did not elect on all legislative and budgetary matters. In other 
words, the so-called capital of the free world is America's most 
disenfranchised jurisdiction.
  More than 200 years after the American Revolution, taxation without 
representation--the foundational grievance of our country--is still 
alive and well in our Nation's Capital. Washingtonians pay higher per 
capita Federal income taxes than any State, yet we have no say in how 
Congress spends that money.
  It's true that there was a time long ago when the Capital had few 
residents outside of the legislators and first Federal workers, who 
maintained representation in their home States. But D.C. now has 
600,000 taxed, yet voiceless, citizens. Not a Senator to hear them at 
the Hart Building, no voting Representative in the House to stand for 
their concerns.
  Based on the founding principles of our democratic Nation, we the 
signees demand that Washington, D.C., have the long overdue freedoms 
of:
  Full budgetary autonomy. Congress is overburdened and often 
stalemated by its responsibilities to the rest of the country. Yet, the 
D.C. Government cannot spend its own tax dollars without the approval 
of Congress. A bill proposed by Representative Darrell Issa would free 
D.C.'s local budget from congressional control. We urge Congress to 
pass this bill free of any riders restricting how D.C. spends its own 
money. Letting D.C. take control of its own budget would free time for 
Congress to attend to national issues, while giving D.C. the local 
democracy that is given to every other American.
  Full legislative autonomy. Eliminate the requirement for 
congressional review of new District laws. This redtape subverts 
democracy and adds bureaucratic inefficiency to the processes of both 
Congress and D.C. Government. We urge Congress to pass the District of 
Columbia Legislative Autonomy Act of 2011, H.R. 506.
  Full representation and voting rights in Congress. The people of D.C. 
do not have a vote in the House or in the Senate. This deprives more 
than 600,000 Americans of an empowered voice in our national 
legislature. This unjust situation has allowed Members of Congress who 
were not elected by the people of the District of Columbia to impose 
policies upon the citizens of D.C. that are not supported by the 
people. We urge Congress to pass H.R. 266, the District of Columbia 
Equal Representation Act of 2011.
  Politicians have attached riders related to abortion funding and gun 
ownership to past bills that would expand real democracy for D.C. 
residents. These riders ultimately divert the dialogue from democratic 
representation and further disenfranchise Washingtonians. We demand 
that any such riders attached to the legislation above be presented not 
as mandates, but as referendum proposals up for vote by the citizens of 
Washington, D.C.
  Until D.C. realizes democracy as stipulated above, we will follow the 
examples of Alice Paul, Mohandas Gandhi, and Anne Hazare, and will 
refuse all food and consume only water in a continuous hunger strike. 
In a gesture of transparency, we fast here, in the open, at McPherson 
Square, Washington D.C., with a transparent 24-hour video livestream at 
occupythevotedc
.tumblr.com.
  To consciously disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of American 
citizens is unjust and contrary to this country's principles. Democracy 
for D.C. is not a political issue but a moral issue, not an issue of 
left or right but of representation and democracy. We call on President 
Obama, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, and the U.S. 
Congress to show real leadership and give the Capital of this great 
country the voting representation and local democracy it deserves.
  In solidarity with Occupy D.C. and people's democratic movements the 
world over,
  Signed, Adrian Parson, Sam Jewler, Joe Gray, and Kelly Mears.''
  I only read what they asked me to read. And I commend their struggle 
and will deny myself all food and all water for 24 hours starting 
tonight in solidarity with their struggle.
  I yield back to the gentlelady and thank her for her time.
  Ms. NORTON. Well, I can't thank the gentleman enough for coming to 
the floor, first of all, in solidarity with the residents of the 
District of Columbia to read the statement in solidarity with the 
hunger strikers themselves. It's very important to us, and I think Mr. 
Ellison's coming to the floor does say to the District of Columbia that 
I'm not alone here, that there are hundreds of Members, like Mr. 
Ellison, for whom the issue of full democracy for the District of 
Columbia is a priority.
  So here is a Member who is from the Midwest, from Minnesota, who 
takes the time because the hunger strikers have visited his office. 
They have visited my office, as well. They are young people doing 
something on their own. No one would have said to anyone else, you 
ought to go on a hunger strike. But it does show you the desperation 
that many in our city feel that among us are some who, in order to call 
attention to this injustice in our country, have now taken to something 
beyond civil disobedience, to the ultimate kind of sacrifice, when they 
have given up food now for 8 days.
  Again, I want you to know that this is nothing that they have been 
asked to do, not because I asked them to do it any more than I asked 
the residents of the District of Columbia, the mayor and members of the 
city council, to be arrested in April on Capitol Hill.

                              {time}  1630

  What you have seen during the 112th Congress is spontaneous reaction 
from officials and residents of the District of Columbia to spontaneous 
injustice from this House.
  Importantly in what Mr. Ellison read was the notion of budget 
autonomy. The most immediate answer to the predicament we find 
ourselves in is the failure of Congress to acknowledge that our local 
budget has no business in this House.
  I am very pleased that one Member, the chairman of the House 
Oversight and Government Reform Committee,

[[Page 20289]]

Mr. Issa, had the District before him in the form of several of our 
public officials and listened closely to their testimony. Their 
testimony, and the testimony of witnesses called by the majority 
Republicans, went something like this: that the District of Columbia's 
finances and its budget are in better shape than those of virtually any 
jurisdiction in the United States.
  Then witnesses from both sides said that the District does incur 
significant problems. Those problems result from the fact that the 
District has to do its budget twice--first for itself, and then the 
Congress does its budget again. As a result, the bondholders charge the 
residents of the District of Columbia a premium because Congress 
requires the District's budget to come here.
  What does the Congress do with the District's budget when it comes 
here? Well, it certainly wouldn't tamper with a budget that has been 
put together by D.C. Council subcommittees, hearing endless hours of 
testimony, then calling committees, then with give-and- take from 
members of the council. Congress doesn't feel it's competent to do 
that, so what Congress does is to essentially pass the budget as it is 
and use the fact that the budget is here for its own purposes and 
against the interests of the residents of the District of Columbia. It 
uses the local D.C. budget to affix amendments--known as riders--to 
keep the District from doing what the District wants to do with its own 
local funds. I'm not here talking about what the District wants to do 
with Federal funds; it's what the District wants to do with its own 
local funds.
  And in order to make sure that the District gets the point, the 
District gets shut down if the Federal Government decides to shut down. 
The very threat of a shutdown has repercussions for the District's 
finances, for those who hold its bonds, for those who hold its 
contracts. No city can afford that, and certainly not the District of 
Columbia.
  As a result, this situation has not only driven our own people to 
civil disobedience, it has driven them to follow the example of Mahatma 
Gandhi who, when things got bad enough, if you saw the movie 
``Gandhi,'' would simply stop eating. People would beg him to eat, and 
he would stop eating. And people would say, You must eat; you're more 
valuable if you're alive, and he would not eat because he was trying to 
shame the British Government into bringing democracy to India. And he 
succeeded and has been, of course, the great icon of civil disobedience 
of various kinds.
  But who would expect that public officials would have to engage in 
civil disobedience here? Who would ever think that a hunger strike 
would be necessary in the United States of America? Not for some 
radical principle, but for the first principle, the principle upon 
which this country was founded: If it's our money, we get to decide 
what to do with our money, King George--yes, and King Congress.
  May I inquire how much time I have remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman has 1 minute remaining.
  Ms. NORTON. There is an answer to this, and I thank Mr. Issa for 
proposing a budget autonomy bill himself that mirrors my own budget 
autonomy bill--with some differences to be sure, in deference to the 
Congress. But this is a chairman of a committee who listened to the 
District, listened to witnesses, understood the harm imposed on the 
District--not only the shutdown, not only, of course, the amendments, 
but he was particularly impressed by the harm it does to the finances 
of a city that has done the right thing by its own finances.
  As we contemplate what will happen in the next few hours, we ought to 
find a way to do two things if we do nothing else: Make sure that the 
District budget passes as the District would have it--not as any Member 
of this House would have it--and that the abortion amendment is gone; 
and, finally, that under no circumstances, whatever happens to the 
Federal Government, under no circumstances should the government of a 
local jurisdiction, your Nation's capital, be shut down.

                          ____________________