On the recordJanuary 28, 2014
I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I appreciate the opportunity to speak, particularly since I was denied the courtesy of speaking on this bill, which targets my own district. Madam Speaker, the only thing worse than targeting the reproductive health of the Nation's women is reaching beyond that to do even greater damage to the women of a local jurisdiction--to permanently keep the District of Columbia from spending its own local funds on abortion services for poor women, as 17 States do. Among them are Alaska, Arizona, and Montana, hardly bastions of liberalism. Mind you, such spending is already barred in the annual D.C. appropriations bill. Yet H.R. 7 strips--imagine this--strips the District of Columbia of its very identity for purposes of abortion by deeming the District of Columbia government to be part of the Federal Government. What an indignity. Republicans captured the majority in the name of local control and devolving Federal power to the States and localities. Today, you turn your own principles on their heads to snatch power from a local jurisdiction. We will insist that Republicans practice what they preach.
