Eleanor Holmes Norton: “I come to the floor this afternoon as part of my series of talks designed to help Members of the House and Senate…”

“I come to the floor this afternoon as part of my series of talks designed to help Members of the House and Senate understand the place of the District of Columbia in our structure. It is an anomalous place. And when Members come to the House of Representatives, they must find it very peculiar that anything having to do with a local jurisdiction comes here at all. The most important thing to remember as I speak this afternoon is that that anomaly got to be too much for the Congress, and 39 years ago the Congress sent back to the District the power to legislate for the District of Columbia. So if you hear Members say Congress can legislate for the District of Columbia, you must point them to the Home Rule Act of 1973. It is true that on some matters the District cannot legislate for itself. Those matters involve things like imposing a commuter tax or changing the limits on how high buildings can be in the District, because we don't want to obscure the great monuments. But I assure you that the enumerated congressional powers over the District are quite small, and that none of what I have to say this afternoon is among those areas where Congress has said, only Congress itself should be able to legislate. Yet my good friends on the other side insist upon imposing their own views on the District of Columbia quite undemocratically against our will.…”