D.C. Statehood

Floor Speech

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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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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