Published by The DC Line

Buoyed by the new Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, DC Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton is leading a renewed push for DC statehood and self-governance. At a Jan. 4 press conference, Norton and local elected officials celebrated the friendlier legislative environment and detailed the “earned resentment” they feel over the disenfranchisement of their constituents.

Observing that “you have to think strategically in this Congress,” Norton laid out a two-track plan of action to advocate for political autonomy and equity for the District, publicly announcing her Jan. 3 introduction of a DC statehood bill — H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act — as well as plans to introduce bills “to expand and round out Home Rule” that would improve DC’s ability to self-govern short of full statehood.

The statehood bill boasts 155 original co-sponsors — a number, Norton noted, that surpasses the total number of Democrats who voted in favor of DC statehood in the first House floor vote on the matter in 1993. Since its introduction, the bill has gained an additional 12 co-sponsors. In addition to the broad support of Democratic co-sponsors, Norton highlighted the public support of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“For too long, the residents of the District of Columbia have served our nation in uniform, paid taxes and contributed to the economic power and success of our country while being denied the full enfranchisement that is their right,” Pelosi declared in a separate statement released just prior to the press conference.

Norton has also secured a commitment from the chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform — Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md. — for a hearing and markup of the bill. “We will make the moral and legal case for statehood in a hearing; we will ultimately pass the bill out of committee; and we will press for a full vote on the House floor,” Norton said.

In an additional show of support for DC statehood, a statement of Findings Related to District of Columbia Statehood has been included in H.R. 1, the new House majority’s initial bill on ethics and election reform. Norton emphasized the importance of the inclusion, noting that the first bill generally lists what the majority sees as its most important principles.

Mindful, however, that the more favorable conditions in the House don’t guarantee passage of statehood legislation — it would need to pass the GOP-controlled Senate before being sent to the White House — Norton emphasized the need to simultaneously work to strengthen Home Rule. “You don’t have to go zig or zag; you gotta go as many ways as you find open,” she said.

There are numerous potential changes to strengthen Home Rule that might be more likely to pass, because they would “still leave Congress with the power to intervene until there is statehood. … But they will seldom try to intervene if we get these Home Rule matters rounded out,” Norton asserted.

Principal among the improvements to Home Rule sought by Norton are the elimination of the 30- to 60-day congressional layover for DC laws, establishing a local prosecutor for the District, and giving the mayor the same authority as governors to deploy the National Guard for emergencies.

Eliminating the implementation delay — which was designed to provide a window for Congress “in case someone wants to jump up and overturn DC law” — “would allow the District to proceed on important matters while discouraging attempts to interfere with our local laws, especially on these matters of important concern to the District,” Norton said.

The implementation delay is not only unjust, but also an antiquated tool, Norton said. In recent years, she noted, members of Congress have turned to the appropriations process when they have sought to negate District laws. In a recent illustration of such maneuvers, Republican members proposed three amendments to the 2019 appropriations bill, seeking to prohibit the DC government from spending local tax money to implement and enforce local anti-discrimination and health insurance laws. With the Democrats now in control, the amendments were defeated in a committee markup of the bill on Tuesday.

Norton was joined in her denunciation of congressional interference in local District affairs by Mayor Muriel Bowser. “We demand the Congress stay out of our business …The 702,000 residents of Washington, DC, sent a very clear message in November 2016: We demand statehood, and we demand it now,” Bowser said, declaring the current situation both “unacceptable” and “un-American.”

Acknowledging members of the local DC Statehood Coalition in attendance, Norton praised their continuing efforts. “They have done the hard work. When we were in the Republican Congress — and that has been for the last 12 years — they never stopped working for DC statehood,” she said.

The coalition plans a Lobby Day in February, to press the cause of statehood among newly elected members who may have little or no understanding of District residents’ lack of voting representation in Congress or the unique limitations on local governance. “Some of these new members … will have to have statehood for the District of Columbia explained to them,” Norton said. “There’s no reason for them to be against [statehood], but why should they be for it? … They come here and they can’t imagine that there’s anybody that doesn’t have the same right to go to the House floor.”

The relevance of such an education effort, even among Democrats, was aptly illustrated separately a day before the news conference, when the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) released a new ad criticizing the appointment of Martha McSally — the Republican candidate who only months ago lost a Senate election to Kyrsten Sinema — to serve the remainder of the late John McCain’s Senate term.

A tweet announcing the ad derisively referred to McSally as “D.C.’s — Not Arizona’s — Senator,” and the ad itself referred to her as “Washington’s Senator.” Both the ad and the DSCC were criticized as tone-deaf and quickly received pushback from DC Shadow Sen. Paul Strauss, among others.

“Being DC’s Senator is an honor, not an insult. If @dscc wants to win the #Senate for our party,  Support #DCStatehood, not this off-message slander!” Strauss tweeted.

At the news conference, Norton, Bowser and DC Council Chairman Phil Mendelson all detailed situations contributing to the “earned resentment” that Norton had referred to. In addition to “the endless attempts to overturn DC’s local laws,” Norton pointed out that “DC residents pay the highest federal taxes per capita in the United States of America … despite having no voting representation in the Senate whatsoever, and no final vote on the House floor.”  

Mendelson complained that without statehood or full Home Rule powers, the council cannot even do something as simple as raising the pay of the District’s chief financial officer without congressional action.

Asked about the current partial federal government shutdown, Bowser enumerated the actions the District government has taken, such as garbage collection on federal property. “When the federal government shuts down, we step up,” Bowser said.

Norton recounted that in the past, because even the District’s local budget was wrapped into the congressional appropriations process, a federal shutdown meant the DC government could maintain only essential operations. In 2013, DC voters overwhelmingly backed an amendment to the Home Rule charter to untether the local portions of the District budget from the federal appropriations process, and the change went into effect in 2016 after surviving court challenges.

Bowser and Norton both indicated they would be seeking reimbursement of the District’s expenses related to the shutdown. “We will be seeking an appropriation to reimburse the District of Columbia for every cent,” Norton promised.

Bowser also indicated that she was asking the DC Council to adopt emergency legislation to grant the mayor’s office the authority to issue marriage licenses while the federal government is shut down. The council unanimously passed the legislation — the Let Our Vows Endure Emergency Amendment Act of 2019, or LOVE Act — on Tuesday, with several legislators highlighting the matter as a reason to push for statehood. As emergency legislation, the measure does not require congressional review; it will take effect immediately upon Bowser’s signature and remain in effect for 90 days.

Currently, marriage licenses in the District are issued through the DC Superior Court, which is federally funded. Because the marriage bureau is considered a non-essential office within the court, it has been shuttered during the shutdown. The resulting inability to procure marriage licenses has interfered with some couples’ nuptials.

Bowser also noted that the District receives less back in federal benefits than it pays in taxes. “You know what that makes us? A donor state. A donor not-yet-state. And that’s not accounting for the hundreds of millions of dollars that we spend to support the federal government daily and to accommodate commuters from Maryland and Virginia who come here to work each day.”

Norton expressed confidence that renewed efforts toward gaining political equity for the District would ultimately prevail. “If we fight hard enough together, the bills we pursue today will inevitably pass, and the American citizens who live in the nation’s capital will finally after 218 years become full and equal citizens of the United States of America,” she proclaimed.

Photo courtesy from Wikimedia Commons