Norton Blasts Meadows and Gosar Amendment Attacking D.C. Statehood, Home Rule
WASHINGTON, D.C. — (RealEstateRama) — Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today blasted Representatives Mark Meadows (R-NC) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ) for filing an amendment to H.R. 1, the For the People Act, attacking D.C. statehood and home rule. H.R. 1 is a pro-democracy bill for the nation that includes extensive findings endorsing D.C. statehood. The amendment, which would strike the findings, says that Congress should exercise even more oversight of D.C., that the District should never become a state, and that statehood would require a constitutional amendment, notwithstanding the 700,000 federal taxpaying Americans who live in D.C without equal representation in their government.
This insult follows Meadows’ many failed attempts to trample on home rule, including repealing D.C.’s Local Budget Autonomy Act, sabotaging D.C.’s health insurance market, and steering money away from D.C. public schools. The Rules Committee is expected to consider amendments to H.R. 1 this Tuesday, and the bill is expected to be debated on the House floor late this week. If H.R. 1 passes, as expected, it will be the first time in our nation’s history that either chamber of Congress endorses D.C. statehood.
“This amendment is yet another deeply offensive and pointless attempt by Representatives Meadows and Gosar to deny the 700,000 residents of the District of Columbia the equal rights and representation in their country that every taxpaying American deserves,” Norton said. “It is unworthy of their office for Members of Congress to sponsor an amendment that deprecates American citizens. Meadows and Gosar have seen me stop such gratuitous bills when Republicans controlled the House. They should expect me to do the same now.”
The text of the sense of Congress provision in the Meadows-Gosar amendment is as follows:
“It is the sense of Congress that –
- the Congress is the proper, constitutionally-mandated sovereign over the District of Columbia and that increasing congressional oversight of the District is a wise course, in particular improving the disapproval mechanisms of the Home Rule Act to ensure that poor municipal ordinances made by the congressionally-provided, and congressionally-recoverable authority provided to Washington, D.C.’s municipal government can be expeditiously overturned by Congress;
- the District of Columbia should never become a State; and
- statehood for Washington, D.C. would require a constitutional amendment.”
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