Norton Files Amendments to Strike All Anti-Home-Rule Riders from D.C. Appropriations Bill and Warns Against Any New Riders

WASHINGTON, D.C. – (RealEstateRama) — Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today filed amendments to strike all four anti-home-rule riders from the House’s fiscal year 2018 District of Columbia Appropriations bill, which is expected to be considered on the floor next month when Congress returns from recess. Norton’s amendments would strike the riders that prohibit D.C. from spending its local funds on marijuana commercialization and on abortions for low-income women, as well as those that repeal D.C.’s medical aid-in-dying law, the Death with Dignity Act, and budget autonomy referendum.

Norton said that her marijuana amendment has already received bipartisan support with Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) as a cosponsor. Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA) is a cosponsor of her abortion amendment and Representative Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA) is a cosponsor of her medical aid-in-dying amendment. The deadline to file amendments with the Rules Committee to the fiscal year 2018 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill, which contains D.C.’s appropriations bill, is Friday, August 25, 2017, at 10:00 a.m. Norton expects Members to file other anti-home-rule riders and is prepared to fight them on the House floor.

“The anti-democratic interference in D.C.’s purely local affairs flies directly in the face of the oft touted Republican principle of local control, and I am making sure no Member gets a free pass on abusing congressional authority over the District,” Norton said. “Republican Members from states where medical aid in dying and recreational marijuana are legal should particularly apply the same right of local autonomy that their states have used to the District of Columbia. In addition, I am prepared to fight any and all new anti-home-rule riders introduced by Republicans later this week. We will not be used as political fodder for overeager Members who would rather spend their time meddling in the District’s affairs than working on behalf of their own constituents.”

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