Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I ask the House of Representatives to join me in commemorating the one-year anniversary of the passage of the District of Columbia Religious Freedom and Civil Rights Equality Amendment Act or 2009 (L18-0110).

One year ago, the District, led by the law's authors, D.C. Council member David Catania and then D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray, now the mayor of the District of Columbia, joined five states in affording full marriage equality to our residents. Our landmark marriage equality legislation is not the first time the District has led the country in enacting human rights legislation. The District's unique history makes our residents particularly sensitive to human rights, not only for themselves but for others, as well. Even though some of our residents do no favor same-sex marriage, there is among them a deep tradition of tolerance and respect for the rights of others that could serve as a model for other Americans.

It has been refreshing and heartwarming to see the happiness of our new same-sex marriages. Many have had wedding celebrations that have, in turn, brought great happiness to their families and friends. At the same time, the city's new law has benefited our local economy.

We celebrate the first year of the District of Columbia Religious Freedom and Civil Rights Equality Amendment Act for the many benefits it has brought to our city and our residents. I ask the House to join me in commemorating the one-year anniversary of the passage of the Religious Freedom and Civil Rights Equality Amendment Act.

I am in solidarity with the gentlewoman from Wisconsin and with my friend from the Virgin Islands as well, those who have come down, and in special solidarity with the workers in Wisconsin, in Ohio, in Indiana, who are fighting for their collective bargaining rights. Now, unlike the gentlewoman from Wisconsin, I don't know whether paying 5.8 percent into their retirement benefit is good or not, or whether paying 12 percent of their health care costs, I know it's double or triple the amount. I don't know about any of that.

I do know that when you have health care and retirement systems, there is usually a quid pro quo. You take less pay.

But I don't know the answer to that. All I know is that in a democratic society, where people have won collective bargaining rights, those matters are bargained at the table.

I am here to reinforce the importance of collective bargaining rights that are now on the table of the country, beginning in Wisconsin, spreading rapidly and, watch out, they could come, this insidious movement against collective bargaining could even come to the Congress of the United States. We have to stop it in its tracks in the Midwest.

In any free society, there are four or five rights that everybody will cite, the right to free speech, the right to religion and, guess what, the right to bargain collectively. Once you have established that the workers have elected a union, it is one of those fundamental rights.

I want to say to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin, if one of the developing countries that we always complain are not democratic enough, were to take away the collective bargaining rights of some of its workers, well, you would have to fight people at the well in order to quell the stampede of people saying you have violated a fundamental right of a free society.

I have just come from a hearing on the Postal Service. It was amazing to hear management and the private sector say that the reason you have a post office today and that it hasn't gone down the drain is because the workers across the table from management have helped them to manage the downsizing of the Postal Service.

The best thing that you can have when there is downsizing to be done is, indeed, to have a union. Because when people know that the downsizing, that the rights they hope they had that they don't have have been bargained for, they will accept those rights in a way they would not if management came in and just pulled them himself. That is what Governor Walker is trying to do right now.

I thank the gentlelady for yielding because I want to bring this right home to what is happening on the floor of this Congress as we speak. There is too little recognition of what you have indicated that when you cut agencies, you strangle services. That goes for the Federal sector as well. And I think we have to be very wary that this could come to the Federal sector. Federal workers have been targeted. They've got a great big bull's eye on their backs. They are among the best educated workers in the United States.

Bear in mind, I say to the gentlelady, because this will particularly be important in your State, the deadly deficit commission warned that no cutting should be done in this year, 2011, small cuts perhaps in 2012 and no real programmatic cuts until 2013. And they gave as a reason--this is the deficit commission--they gave as a reason that you would strangle the recovery. It's a fragile recovery. Mr. Bernanke spoke. I don't know if anyone mentioned that.

Mr. Bernanke spoke. I'm not on that committee, but I heard what he said. He has said, as well, don't harm the recovery. You don't, in the midst of a bear recovery, start acting as though you had a full-fledged economy. Everybody has been talking about a double dip. They are going to find out what a double dip is. If we had what independent observers say, 700,000 jobs gone because of these cuts, gone in Wisconsin, gone from the Federal Government, there is no way for us to recover. We cannot kick workers to the curb without having an effect on the recovery itself.

Watch out, Wisconsin. And particularly I say to my Republican colleagues, watch out that you don't bring it here and don't mess with collective bargaining of our Federal employees the way you're doing in Wisconsin. This is not Wisconsin.

Will the gentlewoman yield?

This is very important because it means that Americans understand a fundamental right when they see one. And they are saying, and they know best of all, we're willing to take these cuts, don't go into people's fundamental rights, in fact, don't cut as much as you were doing.

Look, this majority rode into town on the promise of jobs. Where is the jobs bill? Instead, they proceeded forthwith to cut jobs. They cut jobs first in the health care bill. Now they are cutting hundreds of thousands of jobs on the floor with their own version of deficit reduction. All we're asking for is balance.

The workers in Wisconsin are willing to take cuts. They said so. Look, we'll take your cuts, Governor. Don't take away our collective bargaining. Everybody is willing to share. The Governor wants it all. Collective bargaining is about sharing. They need collective bargaining to get a fair deal for all concerned in Wisconsin.

And I compliment the gentlelady from Wisconsin for reinforcing her workers and reinforcing what the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands has told you is the view of the majority of the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to ask the House of Representatives to join me in recognizing the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War and the contributions of African Americans in abolishing slavery.

The Association for the Study of African American Life and History, ASALH, selected ``African Americans and the Civil War'' as its 2011 National Black History theme to show appreciation for the successful efforts of free and enslaved African Americans, during the Civil War, to end slavery. ASALH has issued a statement, which I bring to the Floor:

In 1861, as the United States stood at the brink of Civil War, people of African descent, both enslaved and free persons, waited with a watchful eye. They understood that a war between the North and the South might bring about jubilee--the destruction of slavery and universal freedom. When the Confederacy fired upon Fort Sumter and war ensued, President Abraham Lincoln maintained that the paramount cause was to preserve the Union, not end slavery. Frederick Douglass, the most prominent black leader, opined that regardless of intentions, the war would bring an end to slavery, America's ``peculiar institution.''

Over the course of the war, the 4 million people of African descent in the United States proved Douglass right. Free and enslaved blacks rallied around the Union flag in the cause of freedom. From the cotton and tobacco fields of the South to the small towns and big cities of the North, nearly 200,000 joined the Grand Army of the Republic and took up arms to destroy the Confederacy. They served as recruiters, soldiers, nurses, and spies, and endured unequal treatment, massacres, and riots as they pursued their quest for freedom and equality. Their record of service speaks for itself, and Americans have never fully realized how their efforts saved the Union.

In honor of the efforts of people of African descent to destroy slavery and inaugurate universal freedom in the United States, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History has selected ``African Americans and the Civil War'' as the 2011 National Black History Theme. We urge all Americans to study and reflect on the value of their contributions to the nation.''

Mr. Speaker, I ask the House of Representatives to join me in recognizing the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War, and applauding African Americans for their work to abolish slavery and for their contributions toward the equalization among American races.

Mr. Speaker, this non-controversial bill, which the House passed by unanimous consent in the 111th Congress, will allow development at the Southwest Waterfront in the District of Columbia. This bill will benefit not only D.C. residents, but also regional residents, businesses and national and international visitors, by permitting the District to extend docks and increase recreation and maritime activity just an eyeshot from the U.S. Capitol. The District urgently needs this bill to finalize plans for the Southwest Waterfront, which it hopes to convert into an attractive location for residents and visitors alike.

In order for the District to make these improvements, the Federal Government must redesignate part of the water designated by the Federal Government as the Washington Channel, so that more and larger docks can be built by the District to accommodate increased boating and waterside activity. The original width of the Washington Channel was established in the early 1800s, prior to the construction of East Potomac Park, to accommodate industrial and maritime commerce at the Southwest Waterfront. Today, however, the Southwest Waterfront is no longer a major port and does not accommodate large vessels. In fact, the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have agreed that this redesignation will not affect navigation interests or adversely affect navigation safety.

I ask Members to support this non-controversial change to reinvigorate the Southwest Waterfront for the city, region and visitors to enjoy.

Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.

Madam Chair, the underlying bill is a special insult to the Americans who voted for the new majority on the promise of jobs. They might forgive that the mjority does not know how to produce jobs or that they haven't produced jobs yet, but they will never understand a bill that will make history on the number of jobs it affirmatively destroys.

The deficit commission warned about cuts that are at the centerpiece of the majority's bill, cuts that don't distinguish between short-term and long-term deficits, between the job-producing role of government investment during an economic turndown and the needed savings to reduce the long-term deficit, which must go on simultaneously; but the majority loses its focus entirely with its obsession on snatching local authority, over local funds from the District of Columbia.

While the majority wants to make draconian cuts in most Federal programs, putting at high risk the economy itself, it simultaneously expands Federal power into the local funds and affairs of a local jurisdiction, the District of Columbia. Three riders in this bill are anti-self-government, having nothing to do with the underlying bill or the Federal Government.

Particularly cruel, apart from the home-rule violation, is the attempt to reimpose a provision that would keep the District of Columbia from spending its own local funds on needle exchange programs. If this is reimposed, a rider I got off during the last few years, it will cost lives and spread HIV, as it did for the prior 10 years.

But they're not through there. The majority takes a hard-line approach, even when I asked for and was denied the right to testify before the Judiciary Committee on yet another rider, a rider that would keep local District of Columbia funds from being spent on abortions for poor women. What business is it of any Member of this body how the District of Columbia spends its own money, which it raises from its own residents and businesses?

Mr. Speaker, they go further. They try to reestablish a voucher program in the District, ignoring a compromise reached last Congress to allow every child now with a private school voucher to remain in the program until graduation. It disregards the fact that the District has the largest public charter school alternative in the United States. Almost half of our children attend these schools. If the majority wants to give money for alternatives to public schools, then they've got to respect our choice.

Republican support for vouchers--only in the District of Columbia-- exposes them for where they really stand on vouchers and school choice. There is wholesale support in this body for public charter schools. They will not bring a voucher bill for the Nation to the floor because polls and referenda in the States show there is zero national support for private school vouchers. Instead, Republicans single out the District and only the District, ignoring the city's own extraordinary, flowering public charter school program. Our choice, not someone else's who has nothing to do with us.

You cannot try on this floor to slash Federal power while dictating local policy and how local money should be spent. Those two don't go together.

Offered By: Ms. Norton

Amendment No. 510: Page 243, add after line 24 the

following:

Offered By: Ms. Norton

Amendment No. 39: Page 243, strike lines 12 through 14.

Offered By: Ms. Norton

Amendment No. 40: Page 243, strike lines 15 through 24.

Offered By: Ms. Norton

Amendment No. 41: Page 234, line 10, insert after the

dollar amount the following: ``(increased by $2,300,000)''.

Page 234, line 11, insert after the dollar amount the

following: ``(reduced by $2,300,000)''.

Page 234, line 14, insert after the dollar amount the

following: ``(increased by $1,000,000)''.

Page 234, strike line 15 and all that follows through page

235, line 8.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

The President has begun a review of regulations. Madam Speaker, you would think the majority would do something like declare victory. Instead, they prematurely held an oversight hearing with business, a one-sided hearing, rather than joining issue by calling in the agencies one by one to see what kind of a review the President is, in fact, doing.

I favor government for the good of the general welfare; therefore I have always hated government bureaucracy and regulations that make government, even the best of government, look bad. I headed a Federal agency, and I believe I will be more remembered for streamlining its processes than for the underlying mission. I eliminated a huge backlog of cases, and settled cases which had usually been carried to the full stream. Guess what? When we started to settle them, we got more remedies.

Instead, look at what the majority has done. They have changed the subject from jobs to reducing Federal power in the District of Columbia. One way in which they have done this is to spend their first month on bills which usurp control of local power and local funds from a local jurisdiction. That is the opposite of what they have claimed they want to do.

They have introduced a harsh anti-choice bill. What is the District of Columbia's spending of its local funds doing in such a bill? Yesterday, they introduced a bill to wipe out the local gun laws of a local jurisdiction after the courts have now found them to be constitutional. They have introduced a DC-only private voucher bill, not a national bill, after a compromise on vouchers for DC was already achieved and even though the District of Columbia has a home rule alternative, the largest alternative school system in the United States, where almost half of our children are in public charter schools.

I am grateful.

The majority has taken regulation, a subject on which there is a basis for areas of consensus, and has polarized it. They have broken their promises on jobs--look, no jobs bill--and on reducing Federal power by trying to literally usurp power from a local jurisdiction and dictate to that local jurisdiction from the Federal Government what it should be doing.

Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce the sixth in our series of bills, ``Free and Equal D.C.,'' to give District of Columbia residents the self-government and democracy enjoyed by other American citizens. The bill, the District of Columbia District Attorney Establishment Act of 2011, would establish the Office of the District Attorney for the District of Columbia, headed by a district attorney elected by D.C. residents, to prosecute the local criminal laws of the District, now handled by the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, a federal official. The bill effectuates a 2002 advisory referendum, approved by 82 percent of D.C. voters, on the creation of an office of the district attorney, headed by a locally elected district attorney.

There is no law enforcement issue of greater importance to D.C. residents, or on which they have less say here, than the prosecution of local crimes. A U.S. attorney has no business prosecuting the local criminal laws of a jurisdiction, an anomaly from the past that is out of place in 21st century home-rule D.C. The goal of the legislation is to put the District of Columbia on par with every other local jurisdiction in attention to its local criminal laws. Under the bill, the locally. elected district attorney would become the city's chief legal officer. The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia would continue to handle federal matters, like the other U.S. attorneys in our country. As presently constituted, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia is the largest in the country, only because it serves as the local city prosecutor. The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia needs to be freed up to handle national security and other vital federal cases, particularly in the post-9/11 nation's capital.

Amending the District of Columbia Home Rule Act to create a local district attorney would be an important development toward our goal of achieving true self-government. I urge my colleagues to support this important measure.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in congratulating Giant Foods on its 75th anniversary of service to the residents of the District of Columbia and the national capital region.

Throughout its 75 years, Giant, as it is commonly known, has been known for its high-quality food and customer service. Beginning in 1936, when the first Giant opened in the District of Columbia, our city has embraced its convenient neighborhood locations, bargain prices, and quality customer service.

We appreciate Giant's long presence in the District and its continuing service to our city throughout population growth and transportation and infrastructure development here. We are particularly grateful that Giant has always adapted to the ever changing needs of the community, offering pharmacies, BonusCard programs, which come with special product discounts, Peapod, a home-delivery grocery service, and Super Giant, a department store that offers bulk items at reasonable prices.

Giant has become such a focal point and meeting place for residents that my office frequents Giants in the District for my Government-to-Go program, which offers casework services in the community to assist District residents with federal concerns, saving them from having to visit my offices.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the House of Representatives to join me in celebrating the 75th anniversary of Giant Foods.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise to claim a half hour this afternoon to speak about the citizens of the Nation's Capital, who are full and equal citizens of the United States of America; that Nation's Capital that was born with the Nation itself, was born with the Constitution. Among the Nation's oldest citizens are the citizens of this very city where the Congress does its work.

Now, there is a complicated relationship between the Federal Government and the Nation's capital, but one thing has never been complicated: The Founders and every American ever since have understood that the citizens of the Nation's capital are entitled to the same constitutional rights and democratic rights as every other American citizen.

I have come to the floor because I think many Members who are incumbents may have forgotten, and the largest class of new Members may be surprised by what they may be about to experience on this floor with respect to a local jurisdiction that they know nothing of and that they have nothing to do with.

The new Members have come with a special distaste for Federal intervention, even into Federal affairs, and I respect that. I think that they, perhaps, would be among the first Members to recognize that the powerful Federal Government should never snatch local control from a local jurisdiction. Indeed, you may be about to experience something that is so much of a surprise that it will be a kind of an out-of-body experience when you're asked to actually consider a budget that this Congress had nothing do with, a budget for which every living cent was raised by the people I represent. You may be asked to overturn local laws simply because they are different from the laws you would have passed in your own local jurisdictions and where there is no Federal imprimatur on these local laws at all.

Now, gradually, Congress has come to understand that the United States loses its own credibility as the leader of democracy around the world when it does not treat the citizens of a nation's capital as full and equal citizens. Congressional jurisdiction over the District of Columbia appears in the Constitution; but in 1973, Congress recognized that it was wrong--wrong--to rule the local jurisdiction from the Congress, so it delegated what we call home rule, or the right to self- government, to the District of Columbia. That marked an historic realization that local residents must govern themselves locally, that it was wrong that the Nation's capital was the only place--this place where Congress meets--with no local democracy, where hundreds of thousands of its citizens had no say on their own local affairs.

I know it's hard to believe that this could have ever occurred anywhere in the United States. Local control is among the very first principles of the founding of our country; but only in 1973 did your Nation's capital get an elected government, an elected Mayor, and an elected city council. A lot of that had to do with, to be fair, southern Democrats. Although the District for 150 years was a majority white district, the old-time southern Democrats saw the large African American population here as a reason to keep the District from having any local self-government. Republicans weren't much a part of that, and I hope they won't be much a part of it today.

The promise to delegate the same kind of local control to the residents of the Nation's capital, as we assume, even without thinking, is the case for every other local jurisdiction, has been mostly kept. Mayor Vincent Gray runs the city. The City Council passes the laws-- except when Congress decides or, rather, when some Members of Congress decide to break the promise of democracy and intervene into the affairs of a local jurisdiction for one reason and one reason only: that they simply disagree with the decisions the local jurisdiction has made. Imagine if in your own districts, from this Congress, I disagreed with some of your decisions, and I could then overturn those decisions.

My colleagues, I am asking you not to do to us what you would not have done to you. We ask only that you apply the same standard of democracy here in the Nation's capital that you insist on in your own districts. You cannot be for one standard of democracy for the Egyptian people, who are now rising up to demand democracy, without being for the same standard in your own Nation's capital. You wouldn't intervene and tell the Egyptians what to do even when you disagreed with it.

We ask you in the name of the Founders, in the name of American democracy: Do not do that to the residents of the District of Columbia. It is impossible to justify a standard for democracy that makes an exception when you disagree with the decisions that have been made.

I respect that new Members abhor Federal intervention even in areas of legitimate Federal concern. The new Members, some of them tea party members, would like to withdraw Federal intervention from areas long understood to be of some concern to the Federal Government. Their view is that, even in these Federal matters, there is too much Federal Government.

What about Federal intervention where there is no Federal concern whatsoever? What about Federal intervention where there is no Federal money whatsoever but only billions of dollars raised by the local taxpayers? What about Federal intervention where there is no Federal law involved but only the law of the local jurisdiction?

If you think there is too much Federal Government in what we do now, surely you would not tolerate any Federal Government in the local matters of a local jurisdiction, especially in your own Nation's capital. We raise our own funds, $3 billion, which is more than that of several States. We want to spend it as we see fit, just as my colleagues do in their jurisdictions. Without any Federal intervention, they spend their own local funds as they see fit.

Yet, yesterday, there was a shameful, shameful experience here. There was a hearing on a Federal bill. The Federal bill had to do with restrictions on Federal funding for abortions, restrictions that some of us thought were airtight as it was. I happen to be for the right of a woman to choose, but I have always respected my colleagues who have another point of view. That matter is being decided, as it should be because it involves Federal funding, in several committees of the Congress.

What in the world was the District of Columbia doing in a bill having to do with Federal funding for abortions?

What was this language doing in that bill? And I am quoting: The term ``Federal Government'' includes the government of the District of Columbia.

It does not, my colleagues. We are a local government. We are not your colony. Declaring that the District of Columbia is part of the Federal Government for purposes of intervening into our local affairs, to tell us how to spend our local money, is an unprecedented violation of the District's right to self-government.

The District of Columbia provision was entirely unrelated to the Federal abortion funding purposes of the bill. If there is to be abortion funding in a local jurisdiction--and there is today local funding throughout the United States, using local money, in local jurisdictions--if it can be done anywhere in the United States with local funds, how could anyone justify keeping the people of the District of Columbia from using their own local funds in precisely the same way?

My Republican colleagues have come and taken control of the Congress on the wings of a promise of jobs--well, where's your jobs bill? That's what the people in my city want to know, some of them from poor wards which have 20 and 30 percent unemployment. Why are we looking at the District of Columbia, not for the jobs you said you would provide, but for how we spend our local funds on abortion for low-income women? What business is it of yours how we spend our local money?

Get out of our affairs. You've got enough to tend to here. Why focus on one local jurisdiction? If you want to deal with Federal funding of abortion, fight fair. Deal with it here, man to man, woman to woman. Don't cross the line between democracy and autocracy and dictate; because that's what you're trying to do, dictate to a local jurisdiction how it's to spend its own local funds which you had nothing to do with raising.

Shame on the Judiciary Subcommittee, because I asked for the right to testify simply to indicate why the District of Columbia should be taken out of this bill, and I was denied the right to testify. I have been in this body for two decades. I recall no circumstance in which a Member was denied the right to make a few remarks before the hearing, and certainly no circumstance of denial of a Member to make remarks when her district and her district alone was in the bill. What are you afraid of? Would not elementary fairness and say, All right, Congresswoman Norton, we don't have a lot of time for you, but you're in the bill, so here's 2 minutes? I was entitled to that in the name of fairness.

But you have, many of you in this Congress have given disproportionate time to the District of Columbia. There's been introduced a bill to impose private school vouchers on the District and the District alone. What's wrong with you? What are you afraid of? If you're for vouchers, put a national vouchers bill on the floor.

I know why there is no national vouchers bill on the floor; because there have been referendums in many of the States on vouchers, and every last referendum has been defeated because the people of the United States say over and over again that if you have one red cent, you better spend it on our public schools.

There's already been a compromise on this issue. The District of Columbia was singled out for vouchers, even though we have the largest alternative public charter school system in the country. Would that the Members of this body, on either side of the aisle, had almost half of their children in alternative schools, public charter schools, that residents themselves have come forward to establish as an alternative to their public schools.

Why pick on us? If vouchers are so good, I challenge you, put a bill on the floor. Let those who want it come forward. You are afraid. You don't have the guts. You pick on us because you can. It's wrong. A compromise was reached. The compromise allowed those who are now attending voucher schools to remain in those schools until they graduate. No compromise is enough for those who believe in a zero sum game.

The District's home rule public charter school alternative is a model for the Nation. Moreover, charter schools enjoy the strongest kind of bipartisan support in this Congress. What's wrong with what we're doing? Why aren't we being complimented and commended for having a public charter school system where almost half our kids attend?

In your district, you will find that your local school boards, your States keep charter schools from coming forward. That's not happened here, in part because during the last Republican Congress, under Speaker Gingrich, when he came and also discussed vouchers with me, I asked that we do a bill for charter schools instead, and out of respect for home rule, he did. Where is that respect for local control in this body today?

Our charter schools have long waiting lists. We could use any money that the Congress has to help these children find places in our own charter schools. This is the last district you want to impose vouchers on, precisely because we've heard the call that when there are children who are not being well educated in at least some of your public schools--and I am a strong supporter of our public schools. I'm a graduate of the D.C. public schools, but I do concede that there are some children who don't have access to the best education. Well, we've done something for them. Don't punish us for it by imposing a voucher system on us that we do not want.

Last year, I had asked that there be placed in the omnibus bill $5 million for voucher parents to go to public charter schools, because when I met with my voucher parents, they said--or many of them said-- they had tried to get into our public charter schools and could not because of long waiting lists. That's where the demand is. That's where the need is.

We want our choices to be respected. Sure, we respect that there may be jurisdictions who would, in fact, wish vouchers. Give them the opportunity. Don't impose vouchers on people who have chosen another alternative.

I'm not sure why one local jurisdiction would command so much attention from a new majority who convinced the American people that they would put jobs first. I'm not sure why, but I am sure of this, that if you want to direct your attention someplace else, there must be a lot of places you can go besides the District of Columbia. I am going to be on this floor often making sure that Members understand who the District of Columbia is, what it expects, and how it expects to be treated.

Now, I see on the floor the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano), and I appreciate that he's come down, because it's one thing for me to try to get all of the riders, the anti-home rule riders, unfair home rule riders off of the District of Columbia, but I certainly could not do that by myself.

I'm not even a member of the Appropriations Committee, but we sure had a true patriot on that committee who did not rest until he saw to it that all the riders, riders which violated the self-government rights of the District of Columbia in the worst way, were removed.

So citizens of the District of Columbia will be forever grateful for the work of Representative Serrano, the then chairman, now ranking member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services which has jurisdiction over the District of Columbia as well. We will be forever grateful for the extraordinary way that he kept at it year by year until he had removed each and every one of those attachments.

And I am pleased to relinquish some time to the gentleman, but I do need to know how much time I have.

I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano).

I very much thank the gentleman not only for his remarks today but for the extraordinary work he did. He's right. I was pushing, but he was the real pusher. He was the man at the steering wheel, and he kept doing it until all those riders got off. And I want to thank the gentleman, yes, from New York, but who has not forgotten his roots, the gentleman's roots in Puerto Rico, because his roots have enabled him to empathize with people who may not have the kind of democracy he holds to be emblematic of this country.

So you don't have to be one of us, it seems to me, to feel what we are feeling. You have to think about your own roots, about what matters to you, and particularly about the issues that have driven you in your life. And I think you will come to the conclusion that you should not expect for others what you would not have wanted for yourself.

And when the gentleman from New York mentioned Puerto Rico, he also reminds me----

Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce the District of Columbia Legislative Autonomy Act of 2011, to end the unnecessary and redundant congressional review of District of Columbia legislation. This bill would eliminate the congressional review period for civil (30 legislative days) and criminal (60 legislative days) legislation passed by the District of Columbia. Under the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, if a congressional resolution disapproving a D.C. bill is signed into law during the congressional review period, that bill does not become law. The congressional review period, which is limited only to those days when Congress is in session, delays D.C. bills from becoming law, often for many months. The delays force the D.C. Council to pass most bills several times, using a cumbersome and complicated process in which bills are passed on an emergency, temporary, and permanent basis to ensure that the operations of this large and rapidly changing city continue uninterrupted. The D.C. Legislative Autonomy Act would allow bills passed by the D.C. Council and signed by the mayor to become law immediately.

My bill would do no more than align the Home Rule Act with congressional practice over many decades. Since the 1973 Home Rule Act, of the more than 4,500 legislative acts transmitted to Congress, only three resolutions to disapprove a D.C. bill have been enacted--in 1979, 1981, and 1991--and two of those involved distinct federal interests. Placing a congressional hold on 4,500 D.C. bills has not only proven unnecessary, but also a waste of money and time for both the District and Congress. Instead of using the formal disapproval process to overturn D.C. legislation, Congress has preferred to use appropriations riders. It is particularly unfair to require the D.C. Council to engage in a phantom process that Congress has itself discarded.

The wastefulness of the layover process is all the more apparent considering that my bill does not prevent review of District laws by Congress. Under clause 17 of section 8 of article I of the U.S. Constitution, the House and the Senate may scrutinize every piece of legislation passed by the D.C. Council, and, using that authority, change or strike such legislation at any time if it desired. My bill would only eliminate the automatic hold placed on local legislation and the need for the D.C. Council to use a process initially passed for the convenience of Congress, but one that Congress has since eliminated in all but law. The bill would promote efficiency and cost savings for both Congress and the District. The bill would benefit the city's bond rating, which is affected by the shadow of congressional review and the delay in the finality of District legislation.

The limited legislative autonomy granted in this bill would allow the District to realize the greater measure of meaningful self-government and home rule that it deserves, and has more than earned in the 37 years since the Home Rule Act became effective. I urge my colleagues to support this important measure.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in honoring the life of William Lockridge, who tirelessly served the residents of the District of Columbia for 25 years.

A teacher by profession, William Lockridge devoted his life to improving education for the city's children and to community service for the people of the District of Columbia. He was a member of the D.C. State Board of Education and its longest serving member.

Although born in Tennessee, raised in Chicago, and educated at Tennessee State University, in Memphis, William Lockridge became a quintessential Washingtonian, eager for many varieties of community service, once serving as Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner, president of the Alabama Avenue Task Force, president of the Ward 8 Democrats, board member of the Neighborhood Planning Council, the Parent Teacher Student Association, and the Action to Rehabilitate Housing, as well as a member of the National Alliance of Black School Educators, the D.C. Democratic State Committee, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

William was ubiquitous in his devotion to his community, but education was his first love. His vision runs through the D.C. Public Schools, where he worked as a teacher, parent advocate for students with special needs, and a truancy officer over his 15-year career. But William Lockridge wanted to do more. He wanted to change the public schools. He immersed himself in accomplishing this mission as the Ward 8 D.C. School Board member and then as the D.C. State Board of Education member for Wards 7 and 8 until the day he died.

When it came to the children he represented in the communities east of the Anacostia River, William Lockridge would brook no compromise. So resolute was his advocacy that children everywhere in the District, particularly children from families of modest income, benefitted immensely from his service.

Residents throughout the city were heartbroken when the trim, ever active William Lockridge fell suddenly and unexpectedly ill. From across the city, top officials and ordinary citizens alike flocked to the hospital and then to a vigil, where elected officials and residents spoke lovingly of William Lockridge, just below his hospital window.

The Lockridge brand of passionate dedication to public service cannot be bottled. His devotion to the city's children and to their education got its authenticity from a unique source deep within the man. His work for those who needed him most became a part of William's identity. The District of Columbia and its children were the beneficiaries.

Only William's own family, Wanda, his ``queen,'' as he called his wife, his two children, Joy and Stephan, and his four grandchildren, outranked his love for the city's children. Not content to tell other people how to raise and educate their children, Lockridge led by example as a model family man who lived what he taught, beginning at home, where children first learn by simply looking at their parents.

William Lockridge left his beloved family and city far too soon, but he left them a complete and fulfilled life. He spent his productive life doing not only what gave his own life meaning. William Lockridge devoted his life to giving meaning to the lives of many others, especially the children of the District of Columbia. I ask the House to join me in honoring the worthy life of William Lockridge.