District of Columbia and United States Territories Circulating Quarter Doller Program Act

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AND UNITED STATES TERRITORIES CIRCULATING QUARTER DOLLAR PROGRAM ACT

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Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Illinois for yielding and for his early work on this bill, and I certainly thank the gentleman from Delaware, who has worked on this matter with me, which now this makes the fifth time. Indeed, this is the fifth time, and I am grateful that the House has been willing to come back time and again, that we will pass a bill to afford the five insular areas and the District of Columbia a quarter bearing a design of their choice on the reverse side. Inadvertently these Americans were excluded from the 50 State bill affording this same right to the States in 1998.

We owe very special thanks to successive committee and subcommittee Chairs and ranking members of the Financial Services Committee. We especially appreciate the new chairman, Barney Frank, who reached out to us to put this bill for consideration by the House on the early suspension calendar.

Forty States have had their State designs on the reverse side of the quarter with four more States to be added before this year is ended. All the coins are minted according to the year each State ratified the Constitution of the United States or were admitted into the Union.

Although States have appropriate latitude, there are limitations as to what can be used as a design. According to the law, the Secretary of Treasury has the final approval of each design. The law gives clear guidance as to what is an acceptable design concept. Suitable design concepts include State landmarks, historically significant buildings, symbols of State resources or industries, official State flora and fauna, State icons, and outlines of States. Among the examples of suitable coins are many, New York's Statue of Liberty and the like.

This bill points out the importance of including all Americans in the symbols of American citizenship. The residents of the District and of the insular areas are full and equal American citizens. To leave them out of mere exercises of citizenship is to seem to deny the citizenship they revere and share with other Americans. The Americans who live in these areas have fought and died in our country's wars and have extraordinary records of service, particularly in the Armed Forces, in considerably larger numbers than many States. District citizens, in addition, pay Federal income taxes.

We in the Congress all represent proud Americans. There are, of course, significant differences between the States and the jurisdictions covered by this bill. However, qualification to be part of a program of quarter coins to commemorate congressional districts is not one of them. Under the Constitution all Americans are equal notwithstanding important differences in form, structure, and other significant distinctions. Today, by including all Americans, Congress avoids any appearance of differential or discriminatory treatment and any implication that these areas are colonies, never the intention when the five jurisdictions were not included in the original bill in 1998, as the House has made clear by repeatedly bringing this bill to the floor. Perhaps the other body this time is ready to grant us our citizenship.

Today, when our country is at war and faces unparalleled dangers, this bill is yet another example of our unity as Americans and our indivisibility in honoring all of our country's citizens. By repeatedly passing this measure, the House has made it abundantly clear that we are one country, and that our hope is that the Senate will join us.

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Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I cannot close without saying a word about the spirit in which the gentleman from Delaware has handled this matter. What is it, we are told 8 years. It was a quintessential moment of bipartisanship.

I was sitting in my office when the bill came to the floor, and staff came in and said the District of Columbia and the territories are not included in this coin bill. I ran to the floor and ran over to the gentleman. It is understandable, it is called 50 States, that it is easy to forget us I guess, and he assured us there had been no intention.

Madam Speaker, I had two choices. One choice was on suspension, as it is today, which was simply to ask my side to vote against it and it wouldn't have passed on suspension. The other side was to listen to what the chairman said, and what he said was that he would put this bill again on the floor. He, and for that matter his successor committee chairs and subcommittee chairs, has never wavered on putting this bill forward. Let us be clear that when we are talking about five times, we are talking about, shall we call them, the other body.

I point this out because I believe we owe the same reciprocal spirit of bipartisanship that, sir, you so kindly granted us. The fact is, this is such a small matter. That such a small matter can be so hurtful may not be understandable to others.

One way to understand it is the disproportionate service in the Armed Forces. I don't know why, but you have only to look at the statistics to be stunned by the disproportionate service in our Armed Forces of people from the District of Columbia and the insular areas. It is not because they during the period of the draft were more often drafted; it was a greater willingness to serve.

I want to say, Madam Speaker, in closing that a virtual unwritten rule of this House should be that no distinction not proscribed by laws ever be made among American citizens, particularly in the people's House. We will all be challenged, I hope shortly, on an entirely unrelated bill, not the bill that the gentleman from Delaware spoke of that is due to come to the floor on delegate voting, but yet another bill, a bill 200 years in the making, 200 painful years of service in the Armed Forces, of paying taxes without representation which are going to call Congress to account, especially my party, which has flooded this floor with statements of belief in the full voting rights of the people of the Nation's Capital.

To his great credit, Representative Tom Davis when he chaired the Government Reform Committee discovered a magic opportunity, that is the only word for it because it won't come again soon, that the State of Utah had barely missed getting a vote in the last census. And he came to me and suggested that we put Utah and the District of Columbia together just as Alaska and Hawaii came in the Union together, and precisely the only way we have increased representation in the House and the Senate, and that is through political balance.

It was an offer we couldn't refuse, but it took us 4 years of my negotiating with the Democrats who kept telling me what they wanted and Mr. Davis negotiating with Republicans who kept telling them what they wanted, and finally we got the bill through the Government Reform Committee 15-14. This is such an extraordinary bipartisan vote on a controversial bill, 15 Democrats, 14 Republicans voting for the bill, the Davis-Norton bill for a House vote. Not a vote in both Houses, my friends, a vote in the people's House, went to the Judiciary Committee, additional requirements made, they were fulfilled by the State of Utah.

Here, we have the most Republican State in the Union and a big city normally Democratic who come forward together, who are literally joined at the hip together, and say regrettably, although we thank the other side who took this almost to the floor, through two committees, didn't get it to the floor, my party has an obligation written in miles of rhetoric, written in their platform over many decades to bring the bill for the full vote for the residents of the District of Columbia to this floor.

I congratulate my colleagues on the other side who almost brought us home. Now, the challenge is to those who got up and pointed their finger at the other side about not doing enough, the finger is now pointed at us and the time has come. While this bill has nothing to do with that, if you represent the District of Columbia, if you were second per capita in Federal income taxes, if you had gone to Arlington during this war, if you had sat in churches during this war, then you would understand that any opportunity to remind this Congress, including my side, that the moment of truth has come and it has got to come in the 110th Congress for a seat for the District of Columbia this year. Meanwhile, we begin with an entirely noncontroversial ``yes' symbolic bill. Let this bill pass the House.

I thank the Speaker, and I particularly thank my good colleagues for persevering with us. I hope we have set the tone for the 110th Congress.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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