Eleanor Holmes Norton

If citizens do not have anyone to vote for, they are not substantially better off than African-Americans in the South were prior to 1965.

It has not occurred to most countries if they were, in fact, giving the vote not to give it to their capital.

The Congress can continue to exercise autocratic control over the District of Columbia or it can live up to the Nation's promise and its ideals by passing the New Columbia Admission Act.

I was personally surprised to learn last year that the United States is the only democracy in the world that denies voting representation to the people who live in its capital city.

I thank you for the opportunity to testify this morning and this afternoon on their behalf.

In my view, this situation is simply not fair. Neither is it consistent with our values as a country.

I introduced the New Columbia Admissions Act to create a path, if you will, to end the voting inequality that exists.

The timing would have to be simultaneous.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee has called us out on that. They have deemed the District of Columbia's lack of voting representation a human rights violation.

I think this is an American anomaly. It is a violation of international law.

Let us call it the Joe Lieberman tradition.

There should be nothing controversial about, certainly, my nominee.

I strongly recommend him and we would be very proud to have a young able judge like this on our U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

I don't know if the administration knows what it is doing, but it is wiping out the civil service system, it seems to me.

The Whistleblower Protection Act means nothing because there is no appeal whatsoever.

I am very pleased that we are having this hearing.

I would think that the same thing would be understood by the State of Texas, that, essentially, all the Federal Government has done is to say, 'We are essentially allowing you to be our proxy.'

And I do not think you can find any State or local official that is not going to stand with his constituents in making sure there is a robust public process, and we have to understand that is where the delay is.

Sometimes I wonder if Texas understands that EPA actually is there to protect people and not necessarily to protect agencies.

I have reason, given a recent experience, to particularly value the public participation aspect of the NEPA process.

Why would you leave out some parcels? Are we back into GSA doing what the agency wants to do instead of doing what your statute says to do and what the Congress says do?

I was troubled therefore that this week I had to introduce a bill to ask the GSA to do what it already has the authority to do.

I am going to press very hard for Congress to pass the bill to develop the entire parcel that I introduced this week.

So you think you could get the entire Coast Guard into that one building?

I suspect that is who I should be asking, the Coast Guard building was planned before the requirement for space utilization reduction.