[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11828-11830]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 AUTONOMY FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2013, 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, we are approaching the end of the session, 
and I know Republicans--my good colleagues on the other side--recognize 
that they are on track to beat last year's session, where we had the 
distinction of being the Congress with the lowest productivity in 
recorded United States history.
  There seems to be some Members who are looking around to make up for 
lost time as to what to do. There is always the District of Columbia.
  If you want to fatten your agenda, why not introduce a bill having to 
do with the District of Columbia? That ought to be a free enough ride. 
After all, the District of Columbia has a Member of Congress who can't 
even vote against your bill; so why not try that?
  I find, as I look at the record of Members who do that, that there is 
a pattern there. These are often Members who have introduced very few 
bills that would benefit their own districts.

                              {time}  1130

  Next week, the financial services appropriation bill will be on the 
floor. It happens to contain the District of Columbia appropriation.
  Now, of course, unless you are familiar with this bizarre situation, 
you will wonder, what in the world is the District of Columbia 
appropriation doing here in the first place? Well, it shouldn't be here 
because it doesn't have a dime of Federal money in it. It is an 
undemocratic anachronism that requires this House to somehow approve 
the District of Columbia budget although not a Member of this House 
except me is accountable to the voters of the District of Columbia.
  How is that for democracy? Yet, nevertheless, it will be before this 
House. And until we get the same budget autonomy that every Member's 
district enjoys for its own local money, we will find that your time is 
encumbered by a District of Columbia appropriation bill.
  The real difference between the District of Columbia, of course, and 
the other appropriations bills that you will have before you is that 
our budget is balanced. We have a surplus. The Federal budget is 
unbalanced and has a deficit.
  There are a number of amendments. We had driven these amendments down 
to just one, what I will call the annual abortion amendment. It has 
become a kind of annual ritual.
  Of course, there is lots of hypocrisy in the House, but it really 
shows up on the annual abortion bill. Seventeen States with Members who 
sit right in this body allow their own localities to spend their own 
local money on abortions for low-income women, recognizing that the 
Congress does not allow Federal money to be spent for abortions--that 
is even when a woman will be in distress. If she is low-income, she is 
out of luck unless the local jurisdiction, of course, allows for such 
funds to be spent. And, of course, that is regularly done, except for 
the District of Columbia where, again, unaccountable Members have 
stepped in to keep the District of Columbia from doing what 17 other 
States already do.
  When the Democrats were in charge of this House, I was able to get 
all of the so-called attachments to the District appropriation 
eliminated even the abortion attachment. It has been the only one to 
return.
  I want to thank the House that one of these attachments has not 
returned; that, of course, was the needle exchange attachment that had 
deadly effects. And I choose my words appropriately, because that 
rider, which was attached to the D.C. appropriation for 10 years, 
literally spread the HIV virus throughout the District of Columbia and 
is singly responsible for the fact that the District of Columbia has 
the highest HIV/AIDS rate in the country.
  Once I was able to get that attachment removed, we have seen 
injection needle-related HIV drop precipitously. That will give the 
House some sense of the great damage that was done by that attachment, 
and I am grateful--and I will say to this House how grateful I am--that 
that rider has not returned. I believe that one of the reasons it has 
not returned is that at least some Members are aware of its effects, 
and those effects have acted as something of a deterrent to adding that 
rider again.
  This year, here comes the marijuana decriminalization rider. The 
District of Columbia was pretty late in looking at marijuana 
decriminalization, and I will get to the reason it looked at 
decriminalization in a moment. But there are 18 States that have gotten 
there long before D.C., the first in 1975.
  I knew that there was going to be a problem because Rep. John Mica, 
in his subcommittee of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, 
actually had a hearing on this matter. Now, he hasn't called a hearing 
on Colorado, for example, which has legalized marijuana, although he 
has looked at Colorado. He could have simply looked at the District of 
Columbia. He had a whole hearing on the District of Columbia. That is 
what the District of Columbia has to abide in this House.
  Of course, I should not be surprised, and I was not, that there came 
a Member who decided that he would try to keep the District of Columbia 
from doing what 18 States have already done before it and block our 
marijuana decriminalization law.
  I had hoped we were in good company because of a very recent vote on 
this floor. A healthy 49 Republican Members voted with many Democrats 
to block the government from prosecuting users and sellers of medical 
marijuana in States that permit its use. That happened within the last 
month or so. And I said, oh, my goodness, we are in increasingly good 
company. Republicans and Democrats alike see that, without condoning 
any form of marijuana, the tide has changed certainly on medical 
marijuana.
  Well, I do not have any illusion that, because the House comes 
together even to consensus on any matter, that that means that it will 
apply that consensus to the District of Columbia.
  I must say that it took me more than a decade to get another rider, a 
rider that blocked the District from implementing its medical marijuana 
law. Well, that law has now been implemented, and so now we have 
Members looking at D.C.'s marijuana decriminalization law.

[[Page 11829]]

  At this point, 23 States have legalized medical marijuana. We are 
getting close to half the States.
  As I indicated, 18 States have decriminalized marijuana. Now, that 
just means you are not going to give someone a record for smoking weed. 
It doesn't mean you think it is a good thing to do, but it does mean it 
is not worth a jail record. Not so much jail, because people don't 
usually go to jail; they just get a record that keeps them from getting 
a job.
  Two States have legalized marijuana, and the House should take note 
of this fact: A 2014 Pew Research Center poll has now found that 54 
percent of Americans support marijuana legalization. The District 
hasn't legalized, most States haven't legalized. The American people 
are ahead of where we are.
  But the same double standard that I encountered on medical marijuana 
I am seeing on marijuana decriminalization.
  By the way, marijuana decriminalization isn't new. The first was in 
1975, and that State was Alaska. If you look at the map of States that 
have decriminalized in one form or fashion, you will not see any 
difference between so-called red and blue States. From California and 
New York to Mississippi and Nebraska--and of course the two States that 
have legalized marijuana, Colorado and Washington--we see that this 
approach to marijuana is spreading.
  I think most young people don't see enough of a difference between 
marijuana and a substance that has done far greater harm, alcohol, to 
understand why there should be criminal penalties associated with 
marijuana, even if, like me, you don't think that it is a good thing to 
go around smoking anything, cigarettes, pot, you name it.
  Now, nothing distinguishes the District's democratically enacted 
local laws, including this law, from the laws of those 18 States. We 
are all American citizens. But you will occasionally hear Members say 
something that only a tyrant would say. The Member will allude to the 
fact that the District of Columbia, before it had home rule, was 
subject in every respect to the Congress of the United States. In fact, 
all the laws were passed, essentially, by the Congress. What those 
Members will not tell you is that Congress repudiated that power 40 
years ago when it gave the District of Columbia what we call home rule, 
self-government.
  Essentially, the Home Rule Act says the Congress of the United States 
will no longer either pass or interfere with the local laws of the 
District of Columbia. We leave that to D.C. The Congress did indicate 
there were a few exceptions. The Height Act, which proscribes how high 
buildings can go in the Nation's Capitol, is an example. Another 
example is that the District can't pass a commuter tax, even though 
many other jurisdictions have commuter taxes.
  Except for such examples, which are very few, there is no brand of 
local law that the Home Rule Act does not cover. So you can cite the 
Constitution all you want to, but you must also cite the Home Rule Act 
of 1973, which, in fact, repudiated the power of the Congress to 
interfere with the local laws of the District of Columbia or with the 
District of Columbia itself.
  And why wouldn't it? Who are the unaccountable Members, Democratic or 
Republican, of the House or Senate to have anything to say about either 
money they didn't raise or laws that respecting only with local 
concerns?
  Among those you would expect to be most familiar with the Home Rule 
Act would be our neighbors, those who live in Maryland and Virginia. 
And if I may say so, we have Republican Members, Democratic Members in 
both those States, and, for the most part, they have respected the 
integrity of the District of Columbia through its own local laws.
  But Representative Andy Harris, I believe he is a second-termer, has 
not yet read the Home Rule Act; and though he lives in the region, he 
has not reacted as a neighbor.

                              {time}  1145

  Andy Harris is from the State of Maryland. The State of Maryland is 
one of those jurisdictions that has decriminalized marijuana. Now, 
Representative Andy Harris was unable to convince his own State not to 
decriminalize marijuana, so he steps across the border into the 
District of Columbia to try to tell us what to do.
  He happens to be from the Eastern Shore of Maryland. District of 
Columbia residents are so enraged that the major D.C. rights 
organization, DC Vote, has called for a boycott of the Eastern Shore of 
Maryland. You know what? The Eastern Shore of Maryland is, in a sense, 
a vacation spot. It depends on people from the region--the District, 
Maryland, and Virginia--to visit there, especially during this season. 
And the District of Columbia has many allies in this region who agree 
with us that the Congress shouldn't be in our business.
  I don't know why Representative Harris would want to stick his nose 
into the business of the residents of the District of Columbia. I can't 
understand why he thought that would benefit the economy of the Eastern 
Shore of Maryland. He is from Ocean City. They live off of the rest of 
this region, including the District of Columbia.
  I looked at his productivity here to see, is he busy? Is he not busy 
enough? He has introduced only 10 bills. I have introduced 63. I am 
trying to take care of my residents. The 10 bills he has introduced is 
very low productivity. I have cosponsored three times as many bills as 
he has cosponsored because I try to attend to the business of my own 
district.
  I don't know if Representative Andy Harris was fishing around for 
something to do, but he ought to fish at the Eastern Shore, and he 
ought to find something to do for his own residents because all he has 
done now is to outrage the people of the District of Columbia. And he 
has done worse. He has patronized us. He is saying, you know, I am a 
doctor. Well, you know, I am a lawyer. So what does that mean? Does 
that enable you to come into my district and doctor my people? ``I 
don't think marijuana is good for young people.'' Well, I don't either. 
I also don't think that young people ought to get a record for having 
used marijuana.
  I don't know what motivated the 17, 18 States that have legalized 
marijuana. But let me tell you why the council of the District of 
Columbia decriminalized marijuana. Two studies were done. Each showed 
that in the progressive District of Columbia, where half the population 
is black and half is white and/or Hispanic, that blacks were arrested 
at a rate of eight to nine times that of whites for marijuana 
possession.
  Do you know what that means for young blacks--particularly a young 
black man or boy in this country today? It ruins their lives.
  They often live across the Anacostia, which is a low-income part of 
the District of Columbia. Black men in our country--regardless of 
income or education--are surrounded by stereotypes. Let one walk in 
with a ``drug possession'' stereotype on his record, and I will tell 
you, you are looking at a black man who, if he starts out in life that 
way, will have his life ruined because he has a ``drug conviction.''
  I don't know why they decriminalized in Alaska or Mississippi. But I 
know why they did it in the District of Columbia, although it is none 
of the business of this House. They did it for racial justice reasons, 
and we are not going to have it undone by somebody who has no sense of 
my district.
  An arrest or a conviction of any kind for a ``drug possession''--and 
that is what marijuana is--can lead a young man, particularly from poor 
neighborhoods in the District of Columbia, into the underground 
economy, even to selling drugs, where he was only possessing them 
before, because he can't find a job because he has got a ``record.'' So 
the District passed a marijuana decriminalization law.
  I must say that this city is well aware of the effects of drugs. This 
is a big city. It has had its time with drugs, just like every other 
big city in the United States. Nobody in this city fools around with 
the notion of drugs. Drugs have promoted violence in our city. They 
have ruined lives in our city. It is the last place in America

[[Page 11830]]

that would encourage drugs of any kind.
  Also, we don't know what the effects of marijuana smoking may be. 
That is yet to be determined. I know this: millions of Americans are in 
their graves because we didn't know the effects of cigarette smoking. 
So the last thing I, or anyone in the District of Columbia is going to 
say is, go out and be free; smoke as much marijuana as you can find.
  Marijuana smoking could prove to be as bad or worse than cigarette 
smoking. I only wish that we had known for the 100 years or so when 
people were ruining their lives smoking cigarettes. And the District of 
Columbia appears to have recognized that.
  The bill requires the revenue collected from civil violations--that 
is, a civil violation of a fine--to be placed in a substance abuse 
prevention and treatment fund that is administered by the D.C. 
Department of Behavioral Health for substance abuse treatment and 
preventative programs. There are four D.C. prevention centers. They are 
funded by the Department of Behavioral Health. That serves all eight 
wards of the city.
  This is what the city has already done, even though--it is 
interesting to note--all the polls show that penalties for marijuana 
use are not key to determining whether teenagers decide to use 
marijuana or not.
  Nobody knows how to steer people away from marijuana. What they do 
know is that a record for having possessed marijuana can ruin your 
life. And if you are a person of color, it has an even greater effect.
  It is important to note that all of the polls in the District of 
Columbia and in the country show that blacks and whites in the District 
of Columbia and in the United States of America use marijuana at the 
same rate. So why are blacks not only here but across the country given 
a record more often?
  I would note also--and commend Councilmember Tommy Wells, who has 
introduced yet another bill called the Marijuana Use Public Information 
Campaign Act of 2014. That bill, which was recently introduced, would 
establish a public information campaign to educate the public on the 
impacts of marijuana use.
  I bet most of the 18 other States haven't gone to this extent in 
order to deter people from using marijuana at the same time that they 
have decriminalized it. The District of Columbia has been very 
responsible.
  Who is irresponsible is Representative Andy Harris because the 
irresponsible thing to do is to mess with my district. You are not 
accountable to the voters of my district. You are seeking a free ride 
through an act of congressional bullying. And that is the way we take 
it.
  And like anybody who is bullied, we don't know how to do anything but 
fight back. We don't like to be patronized. We will not be bullied. And 
we will not have a Member tell the residents of the District of 
Columbia, who have no way to hold him accountable, what we may or may 
not do.
  So I ask the Members of the House to be consistent, particularly my 
Republican friends with your own small Federal footprint approach as a 
core value, because of your own notion of local control, as opposed to 
Federal control, the hallmark of your values, I ask you simply to apply 
the same principles to me and to the District of Columbia that you are 
insisting upon for you and for your own constituents.
  I will remind you that we are all Americans, that there are no 
second-class Americans, and that the Americans who live in the Nation's 
Capital insist upon being treated fully equally with all of you, all of 
us who are fortunate to be citizens of the United States of America.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________