DC Criminal Reforms to Immediately Make Everyone Safe Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly oppose this undemocratic and paternalistic bill, which amends D.C. law. The over 700,000 D.C. residents, the majority of whom are Black and Brown, are capable and worthy of governing themselves.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record letters opposing this bill from D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, the entire D.C. Council, and D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb. September 10, 2025. Hon. James Comer, Chairman, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Washington, DC. Hon. Robert Garcia, Ranking Member, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Comer and Ranking Member Garcia: As Mayor and Chief Executive Officer of the District of Columbia, I am proud of the work we have accomplished to invest in our people, strengthen our neighborhoods, and drive down crime. Building on this progress, my Administration established the Safe and Beautiful Emergency Operations Center to coordinate public safety and beautification efforts as the presidential emergency declaration ends. This structure ensures that DC will remain proactive--bringing together local and federal partners to sustain momentum on reducing crime and improving quality of life for every resident.

We have worked collaboratively with this Committee on shared priorities, including public safety, the federal Return to Work, implementing a DC budget Fiscal Year 2025 fix (which is still pending in the House) and revitalizing the RFK campus; but I write now to ask you to reject 13 of the DC bills before you today that encroach on DC's Home Rule:

Bills like H.R. 5183, the District of Columbia Home Rule Improvement Act, make the District less efficient, competitive, and responsive to the needs of a highly complex unique local government that serves local, county and state functions. Bogging down legislative and executive action only adds costs and uncertainty, making it more difficult to handle the economic headwinds and growth opportunities ahead.

Bills like H.R. 5214, the District of Columbia Cash Bail Reform Act, make DC less safe. Replacing our very effective pre-trial detention regime, which focuses on charged violent offenses and repeat violent offenders, not just on cash bail. I credit recent changes to our laws related to pre-trial detention for helping to drive down violent crime in the last two years.

And the bills to abolish the Judicial Nominations Commission and to convert the elected DC Attorney General to a Presidentially appointed legal officer for the District are both less democratic and untenable for District operations. The Judicial Nomination Commission, with seven members appointed by the Mayor, DC Council, President, US District Court for DC, and the DC Bar, works. As recently as last month, President Trump nominated three federal judicial nominees who were selected from the Commission's candidate pool--a process that demonstrates the value of maintaining local input. DC residents also voted to elect an Attorney General who represents the public interest. Changes to these charter agencies would significantly undercut the already thin ties to autonomy that limited home rule provides.

Finally, I urge you not to up end our three-part education funding SOAR Act. I have long supported the program to expand opportunity for DC students. However, my support has always been contingent on parity among all three education sectors-- public, private, and charter--and this approach is working. We will not support changes that tip the scales away from this core principle of fairness for DC families. As the fastest improving urban school system, DC has become a model for urban education. We outpace the national average on all tested subject areas. We boast free, full-day Pre-K access serving more than 13,200 young learners--an investment which supports our children and our workforce. DC ranked top of the nation in parental satisfaction regarding school choice. Mayoral control, council oversight, and deep, targeted investments in our students, teachers, and buildings made these remarkable achievements possible.

I look forward to continuing a productive partnership with the Committee--one that respects the will of DC residents and honors the principles of home rule. Together, we can build on our successes while protecting the autonomy that, as history reflects, has made our city stronger. Sincerely, Muriel Bowser, Mayor. ____ Government of the District of Columbia, Office of the Attorney General Washington, DC, September 9, 2025. Hon. James Comer, Chairman, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Washington, DC. Hon. Robert Garcia, Ranking Member, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Comer and Ranking Member Garcia: The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is scheduled to markup fourteen bills tomorrow related to the operations of the District of Columbia. With the exception of H.R. 2693, the District of Columbia Electronic Transmittal Act, I write in strong opposition to these bills. They address inherently local issues and laws that were passed after careful consideration by the District's elected representatives, who are directly accountable to District residents. Members of this very Committee have long advocated for the principles of federalism on which this nation was founded. They have consistently condemned federal overreach and fought forcefully and convincingly for the uniquely American values of local control, freedom, and self-governance. These principles should apply to the more than 700,000 people who call Washington, DC home, just as they do for your constituents across the country.

I specifically want to call attention to the significant incursion on local self-governance reflected in two bills, the District of Columbia Attorney General Appointment Reform Act and the District of Columbia Judicial Nominations Reform Act. Both laws would displace the ability of District residents to have a voice in the selection of local leaders who wield significant power over local judicial matters: the judges on our local courts and the Attorney General for the District. The judges on the DC Court of Appeals and DC Superior Court rule on inherently local matters such as criminal prosecutions, landlord-tenant cases, probate proceedings, civil cases, and divorce proceedings, all of which have profoundly important impact on our community. For more than 50 years, the Judicial Nomination Commission (JNC) has successfully allowed DC residents to have a voice in judicial appointments, while also granting the President and Senate a role in confirming our judges. I urge the Committee not to overturn that well-established process.

The DC Attorney General, as the District's chief law officer, is also responsible for local legal issues, namely, protecting the District and its residents in a wide range of matters, such as enforcing child support laws, handling abuse and neglect proceedings in the child welfare system, enforcing our housing code, and defending District agencies and officers when they are sued. In no other place in the United States are such local issues determined by a federally appointed person with no local accountability. The proposed legislation would be especially undemocratic in light of the fact that, in 2010, an overwhelming majority of District voters (76 percent) exercised their right to amend the District Charter to make the DC Attorney General an independent, elected office, rather than a position appointed by and subordinate to the Mayor. With that vote, District residents clearly expressed their desire that the Attorney General should be independent and accountable to them. The pending bill would displace that choice in favor of installing an Attorney General accountable not to District residents, but to the President. Given that the U.S. Attorney for the District is already appointed by the President, if passed, this bill would concentrate all criminal and civil litigation authority in the President, divesting the District and its residents of any local control over these essential functions.

No one knows or cares more about keeping DC safe than DC residents who work, live and raise their families here. Our democratically elected officials work closely with local law enforcement, policy experts, and community leadership to pass laws that are in the best interests of all Washingtonians. Substituting the will of DC voters with the whim of federal politicians is undemocratic and un-American.

I urge you to reject these measures and uphold the values Congress sought to advance more than 50 years ago when it passed the District of Columbia Home Rule Act: that District residents should enjoy the ``powers of local self- government'' that all other Americans enjoy. See DC Code Sec. 1-201.02. Respectfully submitted, Brian L. Schwalb, Attorney General for the District of Columbia. ____ Council of the District of Columbia, Washington, DC, September 8, 2025. Hon. James Comer, Chair, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Washington, DC. Hon. Robert Garcia, Ranking Member, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Comer and Ranking Member Garcia: The Council of the District of Columbia is aware that the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is planning to mark up more than a dozen proposed measures that would severely and negatively impact the operations, public safety, and autonomy of the District of Columbia. We ask that you oppose these measures in full, save one, H.R. 2693, District of Columbia Electronic Transmittal of Legislation Act. While we have not seen the final text of this legislation, the public summary of H.R. 2693 is consistent with the long held request by the District of Columbia to allow the ability to electronically transfer legislative acts to Congress, rather than only allowing physical copies be transferred. The challenge and barriers created by this current requirement were clearly exposed during both the recent COVID pandemic restrictions as well as the Capitol campus restrictions following the January 6, 2021 attacks on the Capitol.

The other 13 measures that have been shared with us would do direct and serious harm to the District of Columbia and we urge you to reject these measures completely. These bills represent an unprecedented attack on the autonomy and home rule of our local government and the more than 700,000 Americans that call it home. The breadth of these bills is remarkable, and if passed, would result in an erosion of accountability and public safety for the District of Columbia. They range from eliminating and replacing our elected and accountable Attorney General for the District of Columbia with a President's hand-picked and unaccountable associate requiring no confirmation by the U.S. Senate and no local ties, to a full repeal of multiple local DC laws that have been in place for many years, if not decades, that are tested, proven, and effective components of our public safety infrastructure and ecosystem. The effect of these Congressional repeals would put our legal and Court system into chaos and directly undermine successful tools that focus on serious accountability and effective rehabilitation when a crime occurs. As always, when revisions or amendments to DC laws are necessary, those changes should only take place within our local legislature which has the best capacity to provide effective oversight and accountable actions for the residents of the District of Columbia.

We respectfully request that all members of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and all members of Congress, reject these harmful measures whether in committee mark up or before the full House of Representatives. Given the breadth of the multiple measures before you, we also request an opportunity to provide a more in-depth discussion of each bill before the Committee's mark-up, especially in light that the Committee will not hold public hearings on these measures. Sincerely,

Chairman Phil Mendleson; Councilmember Anita Bonds, At- Large; Councilmember Robert White, Jr., At-Large; Councilmember Brooke Pinto, Ward 2; Councilmember Janeese Lewis George, Ward 4; Councilmember Charles Allen, Ward 6; Councilmember Trayon White, Sr, Ward 8; Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie, At-Large; Councilmember Christina Henderson, At- Large; Councilmember Brianne Nadeau, Ward 1; Councilmember Matthew Frumin, Ward 3; Councilmember Zachary Parker, Ward 5; Councilmember Wendell Felder, Ward 7.

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Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, the local legislature, the Council, has 13 members. If D.C. residents do not like how members vote, residents can vote them out of office or pass a ballot measure. That is called democracy.

Congress has 535 voting Members. None are elected by D.C. residents. If D.C. residents do not like how Members vote on local D.C. matters, residents cannot vote them out of office or pass a ballot measure. That is the antithesis of democracy.

The substance of this bill should be irrelevant since there is never justification for Congress to legislate on local D.C. matters. Nevertheless, I will discuss it.

Republicans claim D.C.'s Youth Rehabilitation Act treats adults as juveniles. They are wrong. They either do not understand the act or are misleading the public about it intentionally. The act's sentencing and set aside provisions apply only in adult court, not juvenile court.

Let me repeat: The provisions apply in adult court, not juvenile court. A judge may, but is not required to, sentence a person under the act, and certain crimes are ineligible under the act.

D.C. is not the only jurisdiction with a so-called young adult offender law. Alabama, Florida, Michigan, New York, South Carolina, and Vermont have such laws. The sponsor of this bill is from one of those States.

D.C. residents have all the obligations of American citizenship, including paying Federal taxes, serving on juries, and registering with the Selective Service, yet Congress denies them full local self- government and voting representation in Congress. The only solution to this undemocratic treatment is to grant D.C. statehood.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter explaining why D.C. statehood is constitutional from leading constitutional scholars, including Larry Tribe. May 22, 2021. Re Washington, D.C. Admission Act, H.R. 51 and S. 51 (the ``D.C. Admission Act''). Hon. Nancy P. Pelosi, Speaker of the House, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Hon. Charles E. Schumer, Majority Leader, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC. Hon. Kevin O. McCarthy, Minority Leader, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC. Hon. Mitch McConnell, Minority Leader, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

Dear Congressional Leaders: As scholars of the United States Constitution, we write to correct claims that the D.C. Admission Act is vulnerable to a constitutional challenge in the courts. For the reasons set forth below, there is no constitutional barrier to the State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth (the ``Commonwealth'') entering the Union through a congressional joint resolution, pursuant to the Constitution's Admissions Clause, just like the 37 other states that have been admitted since the Constitution was adopted. Furthermore, Congress's exercise of its express constitutional authority to decide to admit a new state is a classic political question, which courts are highly unlikely to interfere with, let alone attempt to bar.

The D.C. Admission Act. The House passed the Act, as H.R. 51, on April 22, 2021, and as of this writing, the substantively identical companion bill (S. 51) is under consideration by the Senate. The Act provides for the issuance of a congressional joint resolution declaring the admittance as a State of most of the territory currently comprising the District of Columbia, while the seat of government (defined as the ``Capital'') will fall outside of the boundaries of the new State and remain under federal jurisdiction. The Act also repeals the provision of federal law that establishes the current mechanism for District residents to participate in presidential elections, pursuant to Congress's authority under the Twenty-Third Amendment; and provides for expedited consideration of the repeal of that Amendment.

The Admissions Clause grants Congress constitutional authority to admit the Commonwealth into the Union. The starting point for a constitutional analysis of the Act is the Constitution's Admissions Clause (Art. IV, Sect. 3), which provides that ``New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union.'' The Clause ``vests in Congress the essential and discretionary authority to admit new states into the Union by whatever means it considers appropriate as long as such means are framed within its vested powers.'' Every State admitted into the Union since the Constitution was adopted has been admitted by congressional action pursuant to this Clause; no State has been admitted pursuant to a constitutional amendment.

The Supreme Court has broadly construed Congress's assigned power to admit new states and has never interfered with Congress's admission of a state, even when potentially legitimate constitutional objections existed. For example, in 1863, Congress admitted into the Union West Virginia, which had been part of the State of Virginia, in potential violation of a provision of the Admissions Clause that bars the formation of a new State out of a portion of the territory of another State without the consent of the ceding State. The Supreme Court, however, did not bar West Virginia's admission; to the contrary, it later tacitly approved of it.

Some critics of the D.C. Admission Act have suggested that Maryland's consent might be required under the foregoing provision of the Admissions Clause. This objection mistakenly presupposes that Maryland retains a reversionary interest in the territory currently composing the District of Columbia, which Maryland ceded to the federal government when the District was established in 1791. In fact, Maryland expressly relinquished all sovereign authority over the territory at issue when the federal government accepted it. The express terms of the cession state that the territory was ``for ever ceded and relinquished to the congress and government of the United States, in full and absolute right, and exclusive jurisdiction. . . . As Viet D. Dinh, who served as an Assistant Attorney General during the presidency of George W. Bush, has explained, because Maryland's cession of the territory now constituting the District was full and complete, it severed D.C. residents' now far distant ``political link with'' Maryland. The current District is not part of Maryland, and Maryland has no claim on any portion of the District's territory. There is accordingly no basis to require Maryland's consent for the establishment of the new State.

The Constitution's District Clause poses no barrier to admitting the Commonwealth into the Union. The Constitution's District Clause grants Congress power to ``exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States.'' Based on this Clause, Congress established the current District of Columbia, which (as explained) was taken from territory ceded by Maryland, as well as Virginia.

The D.C. Admission Act complies with the District Clause because it provides that the Capital--which is defined in the Act to include (among other things) the White House, the Capitol Building, the United States Supreme Court Building, and the Federal executive, legislative, and judicial office buildings located adjacent to the Mall--will not become part of the new State and will remain under the sovereignty of the federal government.

Some critics have argued that the District Clause somehow mandates that the District of Columbia permanently retain all of its current territory, and that its size may neither be increased or reduced by Congress. The plain language of the District Clause says no such thing; it does not mandate that the District be any size or shape, except it limits the maximum size of the federal enclave to ten square miles.

Historical practice confirms that Congress can change the size of the District. In 1791, Congress altered the District's southern boundary to encompass portions of what are now Alexandria, Virginia and Anacostia. Then, in 1846, Congress retroceded Alexandria and its environs back to Virginia. As a result, the territory composing the District was reduced by a third.

At the time of the 1846 retrocession, the House's Committee on the District of Columbia considered, and rejected, the very argument that critics of the D.C. Admission Act are raising today, reasoning that the ``true construction of [the District Clause] would seem to be solely that Congress retain and exercise exclusive jurisdiction'' over territory comprising the ``seat of government.'' The language of the District Clause, the legislators observed, places no mandate on the size, or even the location, of that seat of government, other than preventing the government from ``hold[ing] more than ten miles for this purpose.'' The House's judgment was correct in 1846, and remains so today.

The Twenty-Third Amendment does not prevent Congress from granting the Commonwealth statehood. Opponents of statehood have suggested that the Twenty-Third Amendment bars Congress from exercising its constitutionally enumerated authority to grant statehood to the Commonwealth. In fact, the Amendment poses no barrier to the admission of the Commonwealth into the Union through an act of Congress, in accordance with the plain language of the Admissions Clause, just as Congress has done in connection with the admission of several other States, including most recently Alaska and Hawaii.

Section 1 of the Twenty-Third Amendment, which was ratified in 1961, provides:

The District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct: A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a State.

By its plain terms, the Amendment poses no barrier to Congress's admission of the Commonwealth into the Union. Indeed, it is entirely silent on the matter.

The only question raised by the existence of the Twenty- Third Amendment is a practical, not a constitutional one: How best to address the Twenty-Third Amendment's provision for the assignment of presidential electors to what will become a vestigial seat of government, with virtually no residents? The Act satisfactorily addresses this question by providing for the repeal of the provision of federal law that establishes the current mechanism for District residents to participate in presidential elections, pursuant to Congress's authority under the Twenty-Third Amendment, as well as by commencing the process for repealing the Amendment itself.

Initially, the Act provides for an expedited process for repeal of the Twenty-Third Amendment, a process that should move forward to ratification swiftly and successfully once the Commonwealth is admitted as a State. None of the other 50 States has reason to seek to retain three electors for a largely unoccupied seat of government.

But the Act also addresses the possibility that the Twenty- Third Amendment is not promptly repealed by mandating the immediate repeal of the provision of federal law that provides the current mechanism for District residents to participate in federal elections.

In 1961, following the adoption of the Twenty-Third Amendment, Congress exercised its enforcement authority by enacting legislation (codified at 3 U.S.C. Sec. 21), providing that the District residents may select presidential electors; the votes of the electors are currently awarded to the ticket prevailing in the District's presidential election.

The existing statutes, fall within the broad authority granted to Congress by the Twenty-Third Amendment to define the terms of, and effectuate, the District's participation in presidential elections. The Amendment allows for the appointment of a number of Electors ``in such manner as the Congress may direct.'' The Amendment also allows Congress to select the number of Electors the District may receive, subject only to a maximum: The District may participate in the presidential Electoral College through the appointment of no more electors than those of the smallest State, ie., three. And section 2 of the Amendment grants Congress the power to ``enforce'' the provision ``by appropriate legislation,'' as it did in 1961.

But once Congress acts again, pursuant to its express grant of constitutional authority, and repeals the legislation that creates the existing procedure for District residents to select presidential electors, that will remove the legislative provision providing for the District's participation in presidential elections. Without such a provision, there is no mechanism for identifying the Capital area's electors or allocating their votes.

Some scholars have questioned whether that approach is satisfactory. They contend that the Twenty-Third Amendment is self-enforcing, and effectively mandates the appointment of electors on behalf of the District of Columbia, regardless of whether such appointment is called for under a federal statute. Some of us disagree; indeed, the very existence of Section 2 of the Amendment makes clear that enabling legislation is required to effectuate the District's participation in the presidential election process. And Congress's 1961 enforcement legislation supports this interpretation.

Even if this self-enforcement argument were to be accepted, however, Congress could easily address it by replacing the current law mandating that the Capital area's electors vote in accordance with the outcome of the popular vote in the District with a new legislative mandate that the Capital area's electors vote in other ways. For example, Congress could require District electors to vote in favor of the presidential ticket that receives the most Electoral College votes (of the remaining 538 electors). Or, alternatively, Congress could require that District electors vote for the winner of the national popular vote winner.

A recent Supreme Court decision confirms that a legislative directive to the Capital area's electors would be enforceable. The Twenty-Third Amendment provides that the District ``shall appoint'' electors ``in such manner as Congress may direct''; this language is a direct parallel to the Constitution's grant of broad authority to each of the States to appoint and instruct their respective electors. In its recent decision in Chiafalo v. Washington, the Supreme Court held that electors do not have discretion to decide how to cast their Electoral College votes, but rather are legally bound to follow the instructions given by their respective states.

As Columbia Law School Professors Jessica Bulman-Pozen and Olatunde Johnson have observed, it follows from the Court's holding in Chiafalo that Congress could legally bind any electors to vote in accordance with the overall vote of the Electoral College or the national popular vote, just as the existing enabling statute currently binds them to vote in the Electoral College in accordance with the outcome of the popular vote in the District.

In sum, none of the critics' constitutional objections to the D.C. Admission Act are meritorious; and the contention that a constitutional amendment is required to admit the Commonwealth into the Union is incorrect. The D.C. Admission Act calls for a proper exercise of Congress' express authority under the Constitution to admit new states, a power that it has exercised 37 other times since the Constitution was adopted.

Courts are unlikely to second-guess Congress's exercise of its constitutional authority to admit the Commonwealth into the Union. Apart from the fact that the legal objections to admission of the Commonwealth as a State are without merit, it is also unlikely that the courts will ever consider those objections. As Mr. Dinh has observed, the decision whether to admit a state into the Union is a paradigmatic political question that the Constitution expressly and exclusively assigns to Congress. The Supreme Court has long, and strenuously, avoided adjudicating disputes respecting matters that the Constitution makes the sole responsibility of the coordinate, elected branches.

The remaining objections to Statehood do not concern applicable constitutional law, but rather matters of policy.

For example, some have argued that the District should not be admitted to the Union because it is a single city and have instead proposed that most of the District's territory be retrocessioned to Maryland. There is, however, no constitutional barrier to a large, diverse city, with a population comparable to that of several existing States, joining the Union. Furthermore, the Maryland retrocession proposal is subject to many of the same supposed constitutional objections raised by those who object to statehood for the District. For example, retroceding the District to Maryland would decrease the size of the remaining federal enclave, which objectors to District Statehood have claimed is constitutionally impermissible. A forced merger of the District and Maryland would also do nothing to address the purported constitutional objection to leaving the residual seat of government with three potential electors, pursuant to the terms of the Twenty-Third Amendment, prior to the Amendment's repeal.

Opponents also argue that Congress should not grant the District statehood because it will lead to a lawsuit. But any court challenge will be without merit, and indeed likely will be dismissed as presenting a political question. We respectfully submit that Congress should not avoid exercising its express constitutional authority to admit the Commonwealth into the Union because of meritless threats of litigation. Sincerely yours,

Caroline Fredrickson, Georgetown University Law Center; Erwin Chemerinsky, University of California, Berkeley School of Law; Stephen I. Vladeck, University of Texas Law School; Franita Tolson, University of Southern California, Gould School of Law; Jessica Bulman-Pozen, Columbia Law School; Leah Litman, University of Michigan Law School; Laurence H. Tribe, Harvard Law School; Paul Smith, Georgetown University Law Center; Geoffrey R. Stone, University of Chicago Law School; Peter Edelman, Georgetown University Law Center,

Kermit Roosevelt, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School; Eric Segall, Georgia State College Law; Trevor Potter, Campaign Legal Center; Gregory P. Downs, University of California Davis; Larry Sabato, University of Virginia; Aziz Huq, University of Chicago Law School; Jennifer Hochschild, Harvard University; Neil S. Siegel, Duke University School of Law; Beau Breslin, Skidmore College; David C. Vladeck, Georgetown University Law Center; Sanford Levinson, University of Texas at Austin School of Law; Ira C. Lupu, George Washington University Law School; Peter M. Shane, Ohio State University Moritz College of Law; Ira P. Robbins, American University Washington College of Law; Michael Greenberger, University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law.

David Pozen, Columbia Law School; Mark Tushnet, Harvard Law School; Michael C. Dorf, Cornell Law School; Miguel Schor, Drake University School of Law; David S. Schwartz, University of Wisconsin Law School; Caroline Mala Corbin, University of Miami School of Law; Jonathan Askin, Brooklyn Law School; Aziz Rana, Cornell Law School; John Mikhail, Georgetown University Law Center; Richard Ford, Stanford Law School; Richard Primus, University of Michigan Law School; Joseph Fishkin, University of Texas Law School; Kate Masur, Northwestern University; Chris Edelson, American University.

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Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, the D.C. statehood bill, H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, grants D.C. residents full local self- government and voting representation in Congress. H.R. 51 reduces the size of the Federal district from 68 square miles to 2 square miles, consisting of the White House, Capitol, the Supreme Court, and The National Mall and remaining under the control of Congress. The new State consists of the residential and commercial areas of D.C. The new State has a larger population than two States, pays more Federal taxes per capita than any State, and pays more total Federal taxes than 21 States.

Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to vote ``no'' on the D.C. CRIMES Act, keep their hands off D.C. and free D.C.

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