Statehood for the District of Columbia

STATEHOOD FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I come to the House to inform the House that I have today filed a bill to give full voting rights in this House to the people of the District of Columbia, who are second per capita in the Federal income tax they pay to support this government, this House and this Senate, and who have fought and died in every war since the creation of a Republic, including the outrageous war where we now serve.

I come in gratitude that the House is now governed by my own party, which for decades has supported not only what my bill today would afford, a vote in the House, but a vote in both Houses, and I come to thank my own caucus for that support. But I also come in some frustration and with some impatience. I come in frustration that I am still a second-class citizen in my own House.

Until I can represent the people of the District of Columbia as a full American citizen, this frustration and impatience will continue.

I had hoped to be able to vote on the bills we all ran on that are now before the House. I came to speak today, but once again, when the vote came, I could not vote. I couldn't vote because I was not even allowed the vote in the Committee of the Whole that I won when the Democrats were last in power.

My people in the District have chastised me for even trying to get the Committee of the Whole vote. They perhaps recognize that it is a hubris that I wished at least to vote in this House as we convened, and they are perhaps right. They tell me, we are not in any way interested in another second-class vote, ELEANOR. It is time for first-class rights for the people of the District of Columbia.

So I accept their chastisement and pledge to them that I will not rest, now that Democrats are in power, until Democrats do as they have always said, that they sought power to do, to give votes to the people of the District of Columbia.

I have tried everything, I have tried statehood, I have tried Committee of the Whole. It is time to try the real thing, Mr. Speaker, when there are 650,000 people who pay their taxes and have met every obligation, and are not recognized as citizens in their own House and send somebody to the House that is not even recognized to vote on this House, not even in the Committee of the Whole.

I come to express their frustration, to say I am leaving all that behind. I have introduced the bill they want. I accept their chastisement. We want our votes. We want it in the 110th Congress, and we want it now. I speak for them as a woman who knows what it means to be a second-class citizen, and who, once she left the District went to law school, said, I shall never again be a second-class citizen. Yes, I grew up in segregated schools in this town, in segregated Washington. That is what it meant to be a second-class citizen. Now to be a second-class civics citizen, after 200 years, has become too much to bear.

So I have introduced a bill to make it absolutely clear, as my people have said I must do today, that there is boiling determination among the people of the District of Columbia to get this vote. Not in January. We have respected the right of the Congress to come forward with the bills that are of great importance to the country, but those of us who believe that the vote is basic, is basic to Democrats, is basic to America, I believe we should move on after January and finally keep the promise that at least Democrats have made to the House and that I commend Republicans for getting us very close to in the 109th Congress.

This is the 110th, Mr. Speaker. This is the moment of truth. This is the moment when the Democrats have not only the opportunity, but the obligation to give a vote in the 110th Congress to the people of the District of Columbia.

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