[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 95 (Friday, June 8, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H5009-H5012]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SHOULD BECOME THE 51ST STATE

  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 the remainder of the hour as the designee of 
the minority leader.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this time on the floor to speak 
about making the District of Columbia the 51st State.
  I am not going to simply glow about how important that would be for 
my district, because we have found that most Americans believe we 
already have the same rights they do.
  I want to describe one of the oldest cities in the United States, a 
city that is bigger than two States, that is to say, has more residents 
than two States, more residents than Vermont, more residents than 
Wyoming, and about as many residents as seven States of the Union.
  The people I represent, 700,000 of them, are number one in taxes paid 
to support the Government of the United States, yet they have no 
representation whatsoever in that body down the hall, the Senate of the 
United States.
  In fact, I am grateful that the House understands that I should vote 
in committee, where most of the work is done, but when a bill comes to 
the House floor, even if that bill singularly affects the residents of 
the District of Columbia, every Member of this body, except the Member 
who represents the District of Columbia, can vote on that bill.
  That is not justice, that is un-American, and it offers strong 
evidence, I think, of the underlying reasons why the District of 
Columbia should become the 51st State of the Union.
  We are making progress. We have got almost all the Democrats on our 
statehood bill. And if there is Democratic control of the next 
Congress, I will seek a vote on D.C. statehood on the House floor.
  I got a vote on D.C. statehood when I first came to the Congress. It 
is time to have another vote on D.C. statehood.
  We have more than half of the Democrats in the Senate, and I will get 
all the Democrats in the House and all the Democrats in the Senate 
before the end of the 115th Congress.
  Most Members of the House come to this place knowing little about the 
Capital City. I don't blame them. I don't see why they should know much 
about it, except that it is the tourist mecca of our country; that 30 
million

[[Page H5010]]

people from around the world, including from their States, come to see 
the extraordinary monuments in our city.
  So Members shouldn't know any more about my district than I know 
about their districts, and yet Members come to this floor to not only 
vote on matters affecting my district, but on laws that would take away 
or overturn laws passed by the legitimate government of the District of 
Columbia.
  When Members come, I greet them, offer them help in finding housing 
and the rest, and that is about the end of it.
  So if they come to the House to vote, they don't know anything more 
about the city, except if they happen to stay here, and we welcome 
them, than they did when they walked in the door.
  But every Member needs to know that 700,000 Americans host them, and 
they need to know, when they are called upon to interfere with the 
local laws of the District of Columbia, they should treat our local 
laws the way they would have their local laws treated.
  I particularly speak of my Republican colleagues, who are the chief 
proponents of local control. They don't want the Federal Government 
into not only their business, but sometimes they try to get the Federal 
Government out of Federal business, and yet it is my Republican 
colleagues who are the chief abusers of what we call District Home 
Rule, what Americans call the right to self-government.
  I need to give you examples of what I mean when I say Members try to 
overturn our laws, and I need to say that I often am able to keep them 
from doing so, even without a vote on this House floor, because of the 
way I think through what my role is.
  I have got to think of a way to keep people who overwhelmingly 
outnumber me, obviously, and are the majority in this House, from 
overturning my own local laws. We have barely succeeded in doing so, 
but I will give you an idea of what I mean.
  I should begin by saying that because this is a city, a big city, 
that its laws would be more progressive than in many other parts of the 
United States.
  For example, the District of Columbia government has passed a Death 
With Dignity Act. This is a controversial bill. Six States have passed 
it, including States represented by the Republican leadership of this 
House. It is a bill that allows a person to take his own life with 
minimal help from a physician. It is very controversial. Six States 
have passed it; so has the District of Columbia. It is nobody's 
business but theirs.
  I have kept this law from being overturned, but I have had to fight 
to do so for at least three years.
  Let me give you another example: the Local Budget Autonomy Act. Why 
would there be a Local Budget Autonomy Act? Everybody knows that if you 
levy your own local taxes, no one should have anything to do with that, 
but the District of Columbia does not have the right to have the final 
say on its own budget, because any Member of the Congress can try to 
overturn the District's budget.
  Are they interested in the budget? Do they try to overturn the budget 
itself? No. But when the budget comes here, Republicans use it as a 
vehicle to overturn laws that they don't agree with, and that is why 
our budget is here, this budget that was raised by the residents of the 
District of Columbia, this local budget.

                              {time}  1315

  In order to keep our budget from coming here at all--what is it doing 
here--a referendum overwhelmingly passed by residents called the Local 
Budget Autonomy Amendment Act essentially said, that is it. It 
shouldn't come here.
  The House has tried to repeal that at least three times. I have saved 
it from being repealed largely from marching over to the Senate.
  Perhaps the most persistent attempt on the part of the Congress are 
efforts to wipe out the District's gun safety laws. It is a big city 
and, yes, big cities are where you have most of the gun violence, so 
the District has tough gun safety laws. And yet, every single year I 
have to protect our gun safety laws from Members of Congress who are 
not answerable, are in no ways responsive, to the people of the 
District of Columbia.
  Our residents can't vote them out of office. They can vote only me 
out of office. They can't touch them. If that doesn't fly in the face 
of American democracy, I can't tell you what does.
  Senator Marco Rubio has introduced a bill to wipe out all of our gun 
safety laws since 2015. I have saved D.C. gun laws from being 
eliminated. But Senator Marco Rubio from the State of Florida, where 
the Parkland youngsters are, who have taken nationwide their own 
campaign to get this Congress to pass sensible gun laws.
  Yet Senator Rubio, aided by Representative Tom Garrett of this body, 
would eliminate all of the District's gun safety laws, including the 
District's ban on guns in schools; including making the District of 
Columbia a unique exception to a Federal law called Gun-Free School 
Zones Act, which means you cannot have a gun within a school zone. 
Everybody could have that except the District of Columbia.
  Senator Rubio and Representative Garrett would repeal the District's 
ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines. Assault weapons in 
the Nation's capital? Imagine who would be endangered if there were 
assault weapons here? And I do not refer to the residents of the 
District of Columbia alone.
  Anyone who visits our city will often find traffic stopped while 
caravans of high-level officials go by. Sometimes they will be Members 
of Congress. More often they will be world figures. Imagine if just 
anybody could have an assault weapon in the Nation's capital, 
particularly today.
  Yes, I have been able to stop it. But why should I have been put to 
that effort when I represent 700,000 tax-paying citizens of the United 
States who had already done it?
  I do have to show you how low or laughable these efforts can become. 
I have stopped a bill that prohibited my city from using its own funds 
to keep certain kinds of flushable products from being sold in the 
District of Columbia. They stop up toilets.
  The Member who proposed this, Representative Andy Harris of Maryland, 
perhaps because it is so laughable, ultimately withdrew it. We came on 
the House floor to expose it.
  But I cite the flushable wipes amendment to show these anti home rule 
efforts know no bounds. You might ask, well, why would Representative 
Andy Harris want to do this? I don't know for sure, except that there 
is a manufacturer of those wipes that has surfaced and, as you may 
know, many Members get campaign funds from people who ask them to place 
matters in bills. They don't ask them to put them in our 
appropriations, but that is what happened, and I had to get that one 
out. I do want to publicly thank Representative Harris for withdrawing 
his amendment.
  To give you some sense, though, of how the District of Columbia has 
to pay attention, not only to its own local laws and preserving them, 
but has to ask its Member to do what every other Member does a lot on 
national matters. So while I am working on national bills, during the 
first year of the Trump Presidency, I had to defeat 15 bills to 
overturn the District's gun laws.
  I had to block bills that would gut the public school system laws by 
making D.C. use its own local funds for private schools. Yet Congress 
has defeated an education bill that defeated amendments to an education 
bill that would have allowed school districts to spend its own money on 
private schools.
  They took private school vouchers out of the national bill, but a 
Member tried to put vouchers on the District. Defeated that one. And 
there are others, but I won't go down the list of them all.
  Understand that that work is important to my District, but it is work 
that no other Member has to pursue because you cannot interfere with 
the local laws of any other Member.
  At the same time, however, for example, I had and did get full 
funding to rehabilitate the Memorial Bridge. That happens to be 
important because millions of Americans use that bridge. They come to 
Arlington Memorial Cemetery and use that bridge to get there. They come 
to the Nation's Capitol to see our iconic sights, and they use that 
bridge. Now that was a national bill. That is the kind of bill, Federal 
bill, that most Members work on that they are proud of.

[[Page H5011]]

  I bring it up because that work, which as a Member of Congress I must 
do for the Nation, as well as my city, is quite apart from protecting 
the local laws of my city.
  Let's take the affordable healthcare act. Virginia has just signed 
on, belatedly, to the affordable healthcare act. I am in the national 
fight with most Members, certainly on my side of the aisle, to maintain 
that law. And we have maintained that law. In spite of President 
Trump's attempt to overturn it. In spite of more than 40 attempts by my 
Republican colleagues to overturn it.
  D.C. needed it, because with the ACA, 96 percent of D.C. residents 
are now covered by healthcare. That means virtually everybody. But in 
that effort I am in league with other Members on a national law. That 
is what I should be paying attention to, first and foremost.

  Another example of a national law which is important to the Nation 
and to me is passage of the Dream Act, to protect these children who 
were brought to the United States as infants or small children by their 
parents, who know no other country, and now face deportation because 
technically they, of course, are not citizens; even though they don't 
know El Salvador or Mexico or any other of the countries from which 
they would have come.
  Of the 800,000 Dreamers, 800 of them are in the District of Columbia, 
so I am like many Members who come to the floor on that issue. But that 
is a national bill. That is what I am supposed to do in the Congress.
  In our city, if somehow we could not save the Dreamers, that would be 
$50 million annually gone from our economy; that is how productive they 
are. I have had a town meeting with them. These are the most impressive 
young people I have ever seen speak to our residents.
  Mr. Speaker, could I ask how much time I have remaining.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bacon). The gentlewoman from the 
District of Columbia has 27 minutes remaining.
  Ms. NORTON. After you have heard all of these abuses of American 
democracy, you may have some understanding why I believe that the 
District of Columbia should become a State, and why statehood is the 
only remedy for the abuses that I have described.
  But, do not think that there are no Republicans who understand some 
of the issues I have described. I regret that my good friend, a 
conservative Republican, Representative Darrell Issa--and I say I 
regret, because I don't think that every Republican should be put in 
the same category.
  I cite Rep. Darrell Issa, because he was chair of a committee on 
which I serve, and decided to have a hearing on our local jurisdiction. 
He asked the Mayor to come, the chair of the City Council, and those 
who handle the budget. He listened and he indicated his surprise to 
know that the District's financial condition and reserves and its 
growth as a local economy, were among the best in the Nation.
  After that hearing, learning, for example, that our budget was the 
envy of the States, Representative Issa himself endorsed budget 
autonomy and worked tirelessly with me and with local officials, as 
well as Republican interest groups, to try to secure at least the 
autonomy over our budget; at least over our budget. These are what we 
call the components of statehood.
  So even if my Republican friends are not for statehood, there is no 
reason not to be or to stand against the elements of statehood. And we 
certainly may well get those before we get statehood itself.
  For example, clemency. The President has the authority of clemency 
over the District of Columbia. Well, he doesn't know a thing about the 
District and, as a result, when clemency comes out, normally the 
District inmates are not even included. That is a classic matter for 
local governments.
  Yes, budget autonomy is one of them. Even the District's local laws 
have to come here and sit for 60 days, 30 days, or for criminal laws, 
60 days, to see if anybody wants to overturn these laws. This is a 
remnant of more than 200 years ago, when the District had no home rule, 
as we called it, or self-government.
  Of course the Congress doesn't choose to use that section, so they 
could get rid of this legislative autonomy because they reserve their 
energy for the budget. With a budget here, they use that as the vehicle 
to overturn the District's laws.

                              {time}  1330

  What I think most Members of Congress do not know is that the 
District's local economy is one of the strongest in the Nation, and let 
me prove that.
  It has got a $12.5 billion budget. That is larger than the budget of 
12 States. My district has a $1.75 billion surplus. That kind of 
surplus, that large surplus, almost $2 billion, is the envy of the 
States.
  My district has a per capita income higher than that of any State, 
higher than that of California, of Massachusetts, of New York. That is 
one of the reasons why the people I represent pay the highest taxes per 
capita in the United States.
  The total income of the residents of the District of Columbia is 
higher than the income of seven States. Its consumption, given its 
income expenditures, is higher than those of any State. And, of course, 
what we are seeing is a city that is flourishing. Its population growth 
rate is the highest since the 2010 Census. In fact, the District now 
has a larger population, as I indicated, than two other States that 
have representation to vote on this House floor.
  DC would only qualify for one vote, and Vermont and Wyoming, have two 
Senators as well--even with fewer residents than the number who live in 
the Nation's Capital.
  One way to understand why the residents of the District of Columbia 
resent being treated as second-class citizens is to understand its 
highest tax rate, Federal tax rate--the highest in the Nation--amounts 
to $12,000 per resident, more per capita than any residents of any 
States. Yet no matter what the bill, no matter how impacted the 
District is, I will not vote on that bill.
  What hurts more than the failure to allow the District to vote on 
most bills is the failure to allow the District to vote on bills to go 
to war. The residents of this city have fought and died in every war, 
including the war that created the United States of America.
  Please remember the slogan that the Framers and the residents threw 
up to win their freedom. It wasn't, ``Freedom in the large.'' It was, 
``No taxation without representation.''
  We ask for statehood based on the original understanding of the 
Founders of our Nation who were willing and, indeed, did go to war for 
the principle of no taxation without representation. Well, the people I 
represent have gone to war without a vote to go to war and without a 
vote upon returning from war.
  The sacrifices should be clear to see. World War I--and here we are 
talking about casualties--more than three States. World War II, more 
casualties from the District of Columbia than four States. And then it 
only goes up. The Korean war had more casualties than eight States. 
And, of course, the Vietnam war had more casualties than 10 States.
  That ought to be reason enough for the District of Columbia to be 
made the 51st State. More important than paying the highest Federal 
taxes per capita, more important than being excluded from a vote on the 
floor of the Senate, it is the sacrifices our residents have made for 
their country that speak loudest, most prophetically, about the right 
of residents to be treated equally.
  May I inquire of the time remaining, please.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman has 15\1/2\ minutes 
remaining.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, it is not as if the Congress of the United 
States has never understood the injustices before you. The reason I 
come to the House floor today is because there is turnover in the House 
all the time and many Members have never heard this until now.
  And why not? Because you don't listen to what happens to somebody 
else's district. You are too busy dealing with your own district.
  That is how we like it, and that is how we would like to make it for 
every Member of the House.
  Yes, almost 45 years ago, the House understood the injustice of what 
was then the case. The District had no self-

[[Page H5012]]

government. It intermittently had some self-government in the 19th 
century--and may I add, that the height of that self-government was 
about the same as the District has now: a Delegate Member of the House 
and the right to local government.
  And who gave them that? It was the post-Civil War Congress, which was 
a Republican Congress.
  The Republicans lost their way, and they are chiefly responsible now 
for the District's not having what their own party understood should 
happen after the Civil War. They had fought a Civil War for democracy 
for everyone, and they, indeed, began the home rule process that was 
lost after Reconstruction and renewed again almost 45 years ago with 
the 1974 Home Rule Act.
  Here again in the 20th it wasn't the Democrats who were solely 
responsible. Yes, it was a Democratic Congress, but it was a Republican 
President, President Richard Nixon. He said, in signing the Home Rule 
Act: ``As a longtime supporter of self-government for the District of 
Columbia, I am pleased to sign into law a measure which is of historic 
significance for the citizens of our Nation's Capital.''
  Remember, this is President Nixon talking, saying: ``I first voted 
for home rule as a Member of the House of Representatives in 1948, and 
I have endorsed the enactment of home rule legislation during both my 
terms as President.''
  Then he went on to say: ``. . . it is particularly appropriate to 
assure those persons who live in our Capital City rights and privileges 
which have long been enjoyed by most of their countrymen.''
  That was a Republican President and a Democratic House acting in a 
bipartisan way to give the District self-government, a self-government 
which it has handled better than most of the State and city governments 
since.
  And that is not the only example of Republicans working with us to do 
what almost surely will take some bipartisanship. Representative Tom 
Davis of Virginia worked with me on a bill that, in fact, got a vote in 
both houses and, indeed, we would now have in the District, a House 
vote if that bill had passed.

  I was in the minority. Representative Tom Davis was in the majority 
as a Republican. I regret that he has resigned from Congress to go on 
to higher and better things, as he saw it. He worked with me and had 
hearings. What he discovered was that the State of Utah, a very 
Republican State, had missed getting a vote it thought due that State, 
and Representative Davis discussed with me the possibility of pairing 
the District of Columbia with Utah--one Democratic vote and one 
Republican vote--and nobody would gain if the District got a House 
vote.
  Now, Representative Tom Davis was not for statehood, but he did not 
believe that we would call it the people's House without giving the 
residents of the District of Columbia a vote in that House.
  The Governor of Utah came to testify for it. The Republican Members 
from the House and the Senate voted for it. It was a one-to-one, and it 
was perhaps the best chance for voting rights, certainly, that we have 
had since the creation of the Republic.
  Well, if we got that kind of bipartisan support for at least the 
House vote, why doesn't the District of Columbia have a vote on the 
House floor as I speak? The answer is that the National Rifle 
Association succeeded in getting a Member to attach to the bill, in the 
House, an amendment that, in exchange for the House vote, the District 
would have had to give up all of its gun safety laws.
  I have just indicated to you the kinds of sacrifice that would have 
meant. The assault weapons ban would be gone, just to name, perhaps, 
the worst of them. That is an offer we had to refuse, and it is the 
closest we have come to equal rights as a Federal district.
  But it is not the closest we will ever come. We will give priority 
during the next Congress to budget autonomy, autonomy over our own 
budget; legislative autonomy, to keep our legislation from having to 
come to this floor.
  A local prosecutor--the DA who everyone associates with your local 
jurisdiction is not who enforces criminal law in the District of 
Columbia. It is the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia who does 
both local law, local criminal law, and, of course, Federal law.
  Mayoral control over the National Guard; your Governor can call out 
your National Guard because only he knows the ins and outs of safety 
when there are issues affecting the National Guard. The National Guard 
is usually used for things that are local in nature, such as hurricanes 
and flooding.

                              {time}  1345

  The President knows almost nothing about that or about the authority 
to grant clemency, as I mentioned earlier in these remarks. Also, of 
course, control over the appointment of local judges and the operations 
of the local courts. Yes, D.C. courts are title I courts. What that 
means is that these judges who handle only local matters--local 
criminal and civil matters--are appointed by the President of the 
United States and have to stand in line to get approved by the Senate 
of the United States.
  I have simply summarized some of the hardships of not being treated 
as an equal jurisdiction under the Constitution of the United States 
and some of the benefits of citizenship that the District would obtain 
if such equality were indeed granted.
  It is true that the District has never achieved this equality, but I 
do not fret that it is out of hand. When the next Congress resumes, I 
have indicated any number of things I will pursue. In addition, if my 
party controls this Chamber, I will ask for a vote on the House floor. 
I will ask for that vote, even though I am not certain by any means 
that that vote would result in statehood. I will ask for that vote, 
because I want to put it to this body exactly what it means not to have 
the same rights they have.
  When my party controlled this House, I did not get statehood, but I 
was able to get what is called the vote in the Committee of the Whole. 
That is a vote on some business on the House floor.
  My Republican friends actually sued the House for allowing the 
District of Columbia, whose residents are number one per capita in 
Federal taxes, this vote on the House floor. They went to the Federal 
District Court, then to the Court of Appeals, but they did not have the 
gumption to go to the Supreme Court.
  So I voted for my District at least on some matters in the Committee 
of the Whole. And I will seek that vote, even short of statehood.
  I represent one of the Nation's oldest cities. I represent 700,000 
residents who have overpaid their dues--have overpaid them in war, have 
overpaid them in taxes. We are overdue as we pursue democracy for other 
people around the world in assuring that there is democracy for 
everyone in our own country. We should begin with the residents of our 
own proud Nation's capital.
  I ask the House to think deeply about what lies in your hands, and 
that is not only the ability, but the obligation to make the 700,000 
residents of the District of Columbia whole by making the District of 
Columbia the 51st State of the United States of America.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________