Providing for Consideration of H.R. 3170, Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2010
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 3170, FINANCIAL SERVICES AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2010 -- (House of Representatives - July 16, 2009)
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Ms. NORTON. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank him for making a clarification before I could.
Let me tell you something about fungible funds. You go home and tell the folks in your county or in your city that the funds that come from the Federal Government are fungible with their local funds, and therefore Congress should have jurisdiction over what they do in your local jurisdiction, and they may put you out of the House.
The fact is that the committee was at pains to respect the difference between local and Federal issues, and I very much appreciate that they did. I'm surprised that Mr. Stupak would come to the floor with misinformation without looking at the bill to work up people on a controversial issue. The District asks, only be left abortion in our control insomuch as it is left in the control of other Americans. And throughout the United States, pursuant to the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, local jurisdictions may use local funds for abortions for poor women.
We are American citizens, and we demand to be treated as American citizens. We are older American citizens than some of you because we were created as a city with the Nation itself more than 200 years ago. I appreciate that our Rules Committee appreciated our citizenship and responded to and respected it.
Now for those who are new, they might say, well, why is the D.C. appropriations in the Financial Services bill? The proper question is, why is Congress having anything to do with the D.C. budget, a local budget? It is none of your affair. And it is an anomaly that we are going to cure soon. But the fact is that it is here under the Home Rule Act, which made the District of Columbia a self-governing jurisdiction. It is in the Financial Services bill because there is no place to put it. There is no place to put it because it doesn't belong in a Federal budget because it is not the money of the people of the United States. These are the funds of the people who live in the District of Columbia.
Some Members may mistakenly, others deliberately, come to the floor to try to impose their will or their choices or the choices of their citizens on the citizens of another jurisdiction. They wouldn't stand for that for one second in their own jurisdictions, whether on abortion or on any other issue. We saw the deadly effects that can occur, and I appreciate that Mr. Serrano removed from the D.C. appropriations an attachment that was responsible for the death and for the terrible health of thousands of D.C. residents when we were barred from using a needle exchange program that thousands of jurisdictions are able to do. We are not going to stand for it. It is not your business to deal with the health of my citizens or to keep us from doing what is required and legal to keep them healthy.
Local control is older than the Nation itself. The war slogan ``no taxation without representation'' meant today, as it means in the District when you see it on the license plates, ``Take your hands off of the local jurisdiction that is not your own.'' This is the D.C. budget before you. It contains funds raised here and nowhere else.
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Ms. NORTON. I thank the gentleman for his generosity.
This is a local budget. Make no mistake about it: no amendment is in order on anybody's local budget. The time for lip service for local control has run out. We have profound disagreements on some issues from abortion to vouchers. Go home and deal with them there. Allow us to deal with these issues in our own way as a local jurisdiction.
I appreciate that the Rules Committee has indeed respected our citizenship. And I demand that other Members of Congress do so, as well.
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