OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2010

Date: July 16, 2009
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Government Budget and Spending Federal, State and Local Relations


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. I thank the gentleman, the ranking member and the committee for bringing this bill forward, especially Chairman Serrano for consistently showing respect for our citizenship as American citizens by not interfering with local governance and trying to keep others from doing so.

Mr. Chairman, it's very painful for a Member to have to come to the Congress to ask that you vote for her local budget. It's particularly painful when that Member doesn't even have a vote herself on her own local budget. Yet some Members are quick to step up with amendments of their own on a budget they had nothing to do with raising, as if District of Columbia were just another Federal appropriation.

One Member, I regret to say, came forward with some misinformation which the Rules Committee and I had to correct this morning that somehow we wanted Federal funds to be used for abortion. Nonsense. We have never asked for Federal funds for abortion services in the District of Columbia, only for use of local funds. We have never asked for anything except equality with other jurisdictions and other American citizens.

All residents ask is that you respect the Home Rule Act. Congress had no intention that our local budget would be treated any differently. These are our funds, local funds, not Federal funds. It is very difficult for Congress, and Congress does not, in fact, change the local budget because Congress doesn't know anything about it. The presence of the D.C. budget here becomes a basis for a small minority to use us for their own purposes, to try to impose on us their own choices.

You can't endorse local control as a founding principle for everybody except the residents of your Nation's Capital. The Founders never made exceptions. I ask you to vote for this appropriation and in doing so, to remember, we demand not to be relegated to second-class citizenship because of our treatment in this process and on this floor.

And I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for all you have done for this appropriation.

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