Eleanor Holmes Norton

I want to congratulate you on your appointment and thank you for your patience and for waiting out the process.

The First Amendment knows no advantage. The Tea Party people would get the same respect and I am confident the same kind of treatment from the Federal Government and the Park Service that they have gotten here.

Let me say this as somebody who represents this city, has deep respect for the First Amendment first and foremost.

I certainly want to go on record to thank the Occupy movement for being responsive to the police...

The best way to get slapped down is to get an ironclad rule written into law that then goes up to the courts and up to the Supreme Court.

We want more of that because we do not want the city torn up by demonstrators.

Isn't it the case that there have not been escalating tactics? Shouldn't we give these demonstrators their due that there has been cooperation with the police and instead of escalating tactics, they have self-policed their movement?

Is it not true that the District of Columbia, the Mayor and the City Council, while they have raised concerns about health and safety matters, the Mayor has asked for some change in where the occupation is taking place, that neither the…

If that money is drawn down, it can be paid for as it is always paid for because this is the Nation's Capital.

I want to thank the police, the various police departments for their approach to seeking compliance.

This is not a country where we talk about people and do not invite them to defend themselves.

There are legitimate questions being raised here in the District of Columbia. The Federal Government has always cooperated well in order to handle them.

If anything, I believe we facilitate it like no other city in the United States and I want to continue to do so.

Freedom is not an absence of uniform rules.

Do you understand that going off on abortion hides what we know every single person who has been involved in the life of trafficking will need, and that is some way to protect him or herself?

Even if you are trafficking and you don't want an abortion, you don't believe in abortion, after the Bishops got the contract, you could not be referred even for contraception.

If I go to a doctor and he says I am real good at doing X, but you need X and Y, he is not good for me.

Now, this was, of course, the first test ever done. But you can't know if there are problems if you don't do a test.

I appreciate Speaker Boehner, Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Chair Lieberman, and Oversight and Government Reform Chair Issa, as well as my good colleague on the other side of the aisle, the subcommittee…

I can't see that the internal policies were violated.

The only thing I find in the act is the prohibition on organizations that support the legalization of prostitution, and no one has raised that as an issue here.

I can't find it, but I want to cross-examine you on that view.

So there is only one issue here. And that issue, it seems to me, is whether HHS followed or failed to follow the objective procedures for awarding a grant to victims, whoever is the organization.

This is a rare, if not unprecedented, hearing. And I just want to say for the record, this is a hearing about public money.

The last thing that Freddie and Fannie need are law firms to drive them into further trouble than the American people already hold them accountable for.