District of Columbia Equal Representation Act of 2011

Madam Speaker, I rise to speak about a possible set of events that will, I think, astound the American people. Most, by now, would agree that a shutdown of the government is a very bad idea. A shutdown of the government is a worse idea for the American people. But if you want to hear the worst of the worst, by far, it is shutting down a local government which is not involved in your national fight. That is what could happen as the first session of the 112th Congress closes out and leaves its signature on American history.

The District of Columbia's local budget, raised in the city, a budget larger than the budget of some States--thanks to the taxpayers of the city--nevertheless, has to be approved by the Congress. It was approved by the District of Columbia months ago, even approved by the Financial Services appropriations subcommittee months ago. But here it sits because most of the appropriations have not been approved by the Congress of the United States.

No wonder District of Columbia residents have informed our office that they will be here tomorrow to speak for themselves because, Madam Speaker, taxation without representation is

bad enough. In fact, it was considered so outrageous that our Forefathers went to war over this very notion.

Taxation without representation, followed by confiscation of a local government's judgment on how it ought to spend its own money, is un- American and should be unacceptable anywhere in the world except, of course, authoritarian governments.

So here I am again. I was on the floor just a few months ago on this very same issue, and doesn't it say everything about this Congress this year. The Republicans have had a year to learn since they took control of the House. They are very slow learners because for the third time we face a possible government shutdown, and we face the possible shutdown of a local government that is not in this fight and has passed its own local, balanced budget.

No forward movement. No forward movement for the District of Columbia and no forward movement for the country. We are embroiled in the same fights because one side, my friends on the other side of the aisle, have decided that a legislative body is one in which one side takes all. The whole notion that we come from diverse and different parts of the country and will have to find a meeting of the minds on issue after issue has fled from this Chamber.

So we see it not only with respect to my district, which is caught in this fight, a fight not of its making, a fight from which it cannot extricate itself, a fight out of which it cannot negotiate itself. We see this happening as if there were no past history to inform us not to do this again.

We don't know if we'll be home for Christmas. We don't know if the government will be shut down. We don't know if there will be a payroll tax holiday, desperately needed by everybody who works in the District of Columbia and in the United States.

And we don't know whether there will be unemployment insurance for everybody who lost their jobs and can't find a job. And let me get this right because this is quite astounding. For every four people looking for a job today, there is one opening. That, of course, is because you have to do two things when you find yourself in the predicament that the President found himself in when he entered the White House. You've got to find a way to grow your economy with some spending in the short term, and you have to find a way to cut spending and tax yourself in the long term. Of course, the other side understands the cutting side. They don't care, apparently, if the economy goes down the drain because they are about to recess without ever having come before this Chamber with a jobs bill to grow the economy.

This Republican House has no major legislation to show for a year's worth of work. It has been off on side issues; and one of those side issues has been the District of Columbia, into whose business it has no business entering, taking the city's vote, the vote that the city had in the Committee of the Whole, on the very first day as the first item of business and then piling on with a set of amendments designed to intrudes on the city's right to govern itself and to spend its own local funds as every local government does, as those who elect it locally have insisted.

So I had to yesterday call the Mayor of the District of Columbia, once again, and say I don't see any way out of a possible close-down for the District of Columbia if the Federal Government closes down. And while he found it unbelievable after the Congress now has the lowest rating in memory that they would even consider a close-down, nevertheless he has got to take the preparations that the federal government takes and is now taking when a close-down becomes a possibility.

The Home Rule Act gave the District of Columbia control over its local laws and its local funds with the caveat that they were to pass through here and pass by. That's literally what it is, a pass-by in the Congress. This has become more than a pass-by. It has become an occasion to encumber the District of Columbia with the views and the laws of Members of Congress, not elected from the District of Columbia, not responsible to the District of Columbia.

So the do-nothing 112th House has no major bill to its credit, no signature to take home; but it does leave an infamous signature that it was able to bully a medium-sized city in America because of some leftover jurisdiction over its local affairs. No wonder that there is palpable harm to the residents of this city. If you have the right to bully, just like the bully in the school yard, they are going to bully.

But I come to the floor this evening to say that we will never let an occasion where Congress intrudes on our rights as American citizens go by without calling you on it. We may go down, but we will go down fighting. We will not go silently into the night.

Once again, on a controversial issue, the House has insisted that the District of Columbia be forbidden to spend its own local funds on abortion services for local women in the District of Columbia. The operative word here is ``local.'' Over and over again, I will say local: local money, local women. No business of the Congress.

I can understand the strong feelings on this issue. Indeed, I respect them. What I do not respect is your imposing your strong feelings on a jurisdiction not your own, on a jurisdiction over which you have no moral jurisdiction.

And so despite the District's own view that our most vulnerable women need the same access to all reproductive services as other jurisdictions have, even if they have to spend their own local money, and many do, even if you are willing to spend your own local money, Congress is not going to let the District spend its own local money. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle, these Tea Party Republicans who came here talking about federalism, have been the first to violate the first principle of federalism.

We are not here talking about local laws alone, my friends, we are talking about local money, money raised in the District of Columbia. Not a penny of it from this Chamber. By what right do you tell us anything about how to spend that money, particularly when that money is spent legally and constitutionally? How do you square that with your Tea Party principles?

They tried on another issue as well. We were able to stop that one. For 10 years this Congress kept the District from spending its own local funds on needle exchange programs used all over the country, albeit with local funds, even though over and over again in test after test, it has been found that well-run needle exchange programs keep people from spreading HIV and AIDS.

In big cities where there are drug addicts, you will find that as many as one-third of those who contract this virus do so through needles; someone who has the virus then has relations with someone who doesn't but doesn't know the other has the virus, and quickly the virus is spread. It is important to note that every health organization and every scientific organization has recommended needle exchange programs as a way to control AIDS, and they've done so based on the scientific evidence.

Down the road, our sister city, Baltimore, a much poorer city, has a better HIV/AIDS rate than the District of Columbia because Baltimore has been spending its own local funds, the way most big cities have, for needle exchange now for decades. Because we were a decade without the ability to do that--because some Members of this House decided they did not want us to do it, they took the lives of--they took the lives of--residents of the District of Columbia and actively participated in the spread of the virus.

Who are they to tell us in our jurisdiction how we must attend to the health of our own local residents? What do they know about it? By what rights do they come to their mandate, regardless of the consequences, to tell us or any other local jurisdiction what must be done or what we must do? Does the word ``democracy'' fall out of the English language when it comes to the people who live in the Nation's Capital? How do we put it back in? Does the mayor of the city, does the entire city council have to keep being arrested in order to make the point, with this picture sent all around the world showing what a lie ``democracy'' can be in our country?

If the 112th House didn't learn that you don't raise taxes on the middle class, if they didn't learn that those

who are unemployed should have unemployment insurance, I don't know why I expect them to learn how they should treat the 600,000 residents who live in the District of Columbia.

I see that I've been joined on the floor by a good friend and colleague, and I want to thank Mr. Ellison for coming to the floor and yield time to him at this time.

Well, I can't thank the gentleman enough for coming to the floor, first of all, in solidarity with the residents of the District of Columbia to read the statement in solidarity with the hunger strikers themselves. It's very important to us, and I think Mr. Ellison's coming to the floor does say to the District of Columbia that I'm not alone here, that there are hundreds of Members, like Mr. Ellison, for whom the issue of full democracy for the District of Columbia is a priority.

So here is a Member who is from the Midwest, from Minnesota, who takes the time because the hunger strikers have visited his office. They have visited my office, as well. They are young people doing something on their own. No one would have said to anyone else, you ought to go on a hunger strike. But it does show you the desperation that many in our city feel that among us are some who, in order to call attention to this injustice in our country, have now taken to something beyond civil disobedience, to the ultimate kind of sacrifice, when they have given up food now for 8 days.

Again, I want you to know that this is nothing that they have been asked to do, not because I asked them to do it any more than I asked the residents of the District of Columbia, the mayor and members of the city council, to be arrested in April on Capitol Hill.

Let me thank the gentlelady from Washington, D.C.

The message I have is very short. It's based on a group of young people who visited me in my office today, all from Washington, D.C. And they are on a hunger strike and have not eaten any solid food for 8 days. I promised them that I would not eat, either, starting tonight, and will not eat for 24 hours in solidarity with their struggle. They asked me to read a statement.

The statement reads as follows: ``Occupy The Vote D.C.

D.C. needs representation: Fast.

Occupy the vote. Corrynf@occupydc .org.

To: Those in Congress with a vote.

Regarding: Full democracy for the citizens of D.C.

Since its creation, our Capital, the bastion of American democracy, has been handicapped from responding to the will of its citizens. Despite paying taxes to the Federal Government and sending our citizens to fight and die in every war, Washingtonians have had no voting representation in Congress, and have had to seek approval from people they did not elect on all legislative and budgetary matters. In other words, the so-called capital of the free world is America's most disenfranchised jurisdiction.

More than 200 years after the American Revolution, taxation without representation--the foundational grievance of our country--is still alive and well in our Nation's Capital. Washingtonians pay higher per capita Federal income taxes than any State, yet we have no say in how Congress spends that money.

It's true that there was a time long ago when the Capital had few residents outside of the legislators and first Federal workers, who maintained representation in their home States. But D.C. now has 600,000 taxed, yet voiceless, citizens. Not a Senator to hear them at the Hart Building, no voting Representative in the House to stand for their concerns.

Based on the founding principles of our democratic Nation, we the signees demand that Washington, D.C., have the long overdue freedoms of:

Full budgetary autonomy. Congress is overburdened and often stalemated by its responsibilities to the rest of the country. Yet, the D.C. Government cannot spend its own tax dollars without the approval of Congress. A bill proposed by Representative Darrell Issa would free D.C.'s local budget from congressional control. We urge Congress to pass this bill free of any riders restricting how D.C. spends its own money. Letting D.C. take control of its own budget would free time for Congress to attend to national issues, while giving D.C. the local democracy that is given to every other American.

Full legislative autonomy. Eliminate the requirement for congressional review of new District laws. This redtape subverts democracy and adds bureaucratic inefficiency to the processes of both Congress and D.C. Government. We urge Congress to pass the District of Columbia Legislative Autonomy Act of 2011, H.R. 506.

Full representation and voting rights in Congress. The people of D.C. do not have a vote in the House or in the Senate. This deprives more than 600,000 Americans of an empowered voice in our national legislature. This unjust situation has allowed Members of Congress who were not elected by the people of the District of Columbia to impose policies upon the citizens of D.C. that are not supported by the people. We urge Congress to pass H.R. 266, the District of Columbia Equal Representation Act of 2011.

Politicians have attached riders related to abortion funding and gun ownership to past bills that would expand real democracy for D.C. residents. These riders ultimately divert the dialogue from democratic representation and further disenfranchise Washingtonians. We demand that any such riders attached to the legislation above be presented not as mandates, but as referendum proposals up for vote by the citizens of Washington, D.C.

Until D.C. realizes democracy as stipulated above, we will follow the examples of Alice Paul, Mohandas Gandhi, and Anne Hazare, and will refuse all food and consume only water in a continuous hunger strike. In a gesture of transparency, we fast here, in the open, at McPherson Square, Washington D.C., with a transparent 24-hour video livestream at occupythevotedc .tumblr.com.

To consciously disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of American citizens is unjust and contrary to this country's principles. Democracy for D.C. is not a political issue but a moral issue, not an issue of left or right but of representation and democracy. We call on President Obama, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, and the U.S. Congress to show real leadership and give the Capital of this great country the voting representation and local democracy it deserves.

In solidarity with Occupy D.C. and people's democratic movements the world over,

Signed, Adrian Parson, Sam Jewler, Joe Gray, and Kelly Mears.''

I only read what they asked me to read. And I commend their struggle and will deny myself all food and all water for 24 hours starting tonight in solidarity with their struggle.

I yield back to the gentlelady and thank her for her time.