Saturday, 20 September 2014 00:00

Norton Says First Senate Hearing in Twenty Years Takes DC Statehood to a New Level

Written by Jon Amar | Comm Director for Congresswoman Eleanor Norton

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said today that Senator Thomas Carper’s (D-DE) announcement of the first District of Columbia statehood hearing in more than two decades highlights “a season of unusual progress for D.C. statehood.” Senator Carper, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, is one of the cosponsors of the Senate companion bill to Norton’s D.C. statehood bill, the New Columbia Admission Act.

Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), who as Senate Majority Leader rarely cosponsors bills, made an enthusiastic public announcement of his cosponsorship at the unveiling of D.C.’s Frederick Douglass in June of 2013. The top three other Democratic Senate leaders, Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL), Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Patty Murray (D-WA), are also cosponsors. There are 99 cosponsors of the House version of the bill, close to the record of 101 House cosponsors for the bill since it was first introduced in 1983. The Senate version of the bill is only one cosponsor away from a record 17 cosponsors since it was first introduced in 1984. The hearing, entitled “Equality for the District of Columbia: Discussing the Implications of S. 132, the New Columbia Admission Act of 2013,” will be held on Monday, September 15, 2014 at 3:00 p.m.

“As chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Senator Carper has a great many responsibilities, but the statehood hearing he announced today shows how seriously he has taken his District of Columbia jurisdiction. The Carper statehood hearing, the President’s endorsement of statehood in July, and Majority Leader Harry Reid’s announcement of his cosponsorship show a troika of leadership that demonstrates the growing strength of equal citizenship for D.C. residents.”

When Norton came to Congress in 1991, her first bill was the New Columbia Admission Act. She got the only House vote on statehood in 1993. Almost two-thirds of the Democrats voted for the bill and one Republican voted for it, giving the bill a strong start, but the Democrats lost the majority in the next Congress. Since that vote, Norton, while in the minority, was able to get the D.C. House Voting Rights Act through the House in 2007 and the Senate in 2009, which would have given D.C. a voting House member, had it not been derailed by a National Rifle Association-backed amendment that would have wiped out D.C.’s gun safety laws.

Link

Read 23897 times Last modified on Tuesday, 28 October 2014 19:55

Latest Zero Climate Emissions News

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6

Latest News

  • Trump administration's voter suppression attempts ahead of midterms are not only 'morally wrong,' they're illegal +

    Trump administration's voter suppression attempts ahead of midterms are not only 'morally wrong,' they're illegal Imagine going to the polls on Election Day and discovering that your ballot could be collected and reviewed by the Read More
  • ACLU Blueprints Offer Vision to Cut US Incarceration Rate in Half by Prioritizing 'People Over Prisons' +

    ACLU Blueprints Offer Vision to Cut US Incarceration Rate in Half by Prioritizing 'People Over Prisons' ACLU Blueprints Offer Vision to Cut US Incarceration Rate in Half by Prioritizing 'People Over Prisons' Read More
  • As Florence Makes Landfall, Poorest Once More Likely to Suffer Most From Storm's Destruction +

    As Florence Makes Landfall, Poorest Once More Likely to Suffer Most From Storm's Destruction "These disasters drag into the light exactly who is already being thrown away," notes Naomi Klein Read More
  • How about some good news? Kansas Democratic Representative advances bill for Native Peoples. +

    How about some good news? Kansas Democratic Representative advances bill for Native Peoples. How about some good news? Kansas Democratic Representative advances bill for Native Peoples. Read More
  • How One Dying Man Changed The Debate About The Tax Bill +

    How One Dying Man Changed The Debate About The Tax Bill What mattered was that he showed up — that he put himself in front of the people whose opinions on Read More
  • Democrats Just Won a Major Victory in Virginia +

    Democrats Just Won a Major Victory in Virginia On a night of Democratic victories, one of the most significant wins came in Virginia, where the party held onto Read More
  • Repealing the Jim Crow law that keeps 1.5 million Floridians from voting. +

    Repealing the Jim Crow law that keeps 1.5 million Floridians from voting. A seismic political battle that could send shockwaves all the way to the White House was launched last week in Read More
  • Nuclear Weapons: Who Pays, Who Profits? +

    Nuclear Weapons: Who Pays, Who Profits? In an interview with Reuters conducted a month after he took office, Donald Trump asserted that the U.S. had “fallen Read More
  • Sessions issues sweeping new criminal charging policy +

    Sessions issues sweeping new criminal charging policy Attorney General Jeff Sessions overturned the sweeping criminal charging policy of former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. and directed Read More
  • 1
  • 2

Featured Zero Climate Emissions News

  • Kerry Would Sue Trump for 'the Lives That Will be Lost' Due to Climate Change +

    Kerry Would Sue Trump for 'the Lives That Will be Lost' Due to Climate Change Former Secretary of State John Kerry, author of Every Day is Extra, predicted that “lives will be lost” due to Read More
  • California to launch its 'own damn satellite' to track greenhouse gases +

    California to launch its 'own damn satellite' to track greenhouse gases Announcement at climate summit comes after former US secretary of state John Kerry warns that international action is slowing Read More
  • 'Major Victory': Landowner's Legal Challenge Halts Construction of Bayou Bridge Pipeline in Louisiana +

    'Major Victory': Landowner's Legal Challenge Halts Construction of Bayou Bridge Pipeline in Louisiana While celebrating the win, activists noted that "construction of the Bayou Bridge Pipeline continues in other parts of the Atchafalaya Read More
  • DAPL Investors Getting Antsy: If Pipeline Doesn’t Move Oil by January First the Contract EXPIRES +

    DAPL Investors Getting Antsy: If Pipeline Doesn’t Move Oil by January First the Contract EXPIRES Though water protectors have held their ground at Standing Rock against the Dakota Access pipeline for months now, they need Read More
  • WV Supreme Court: No Pipeline Surveys for Private Gain +

    WV Supreme Court: No Pipeline Surveys for Private Gain West Virginia property owners won an important case at the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals on Tuesday when that Read More
  • Report: Combat Vs. Climate +

    Report: Combat Vs. Climate Fifteen of the sixteen hottest years ever recorded have occurred during this new century, and the near-unanimous scientific consensus attributes Read More
  • Corporate Media Silent as States Declare Emergency In Aftermath Massive Pipeline Rupture +

    Corporate Media Silent as States Declare Emergency In Aftermath Massive Pipeline Rupture Since an Alabama mine worker first alerted Colonial Pipeline officials to a massive rupture, more than a quarter million gallons Read More
  • The Big Difference at Standing Rock Is Native Leadership All Around +

    The Big Difference at Standing Rock Is Native Leadership All Around This year’s massive buildup of resistance to the Dakota Access pipeline follows closely on the heels of the victory over Read More
  • Beyond Paris: Finding the Courage to Face the Climate Emergency +

    Beyond Paris: Finding the Courage to Face the Climate Emergency Last weekend in Orlando the platform committee of the Democratic Party added language into their platform acknowledging the official position Read More
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5