Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, now in her fifteenth term as the Congresswoman for the District of Columbia, is the Chair of the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit. She serves on two committees: the Committee on Oversight and Reform and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
Before her congressional service, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to serve as the first woman to chair the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She came to Congress as a national figure who had been a civil rights and feminist leader, tenured professor of law, and board member at three Fortune 500 companies. Congresswoman Norton has been named one of the 100 most important American women in one survey and one of the most powerful women in Washington in another. The Congresswoman's work for full congressional voting representation and for full democracy for the people of the District of Columbia continues her lifelong struggle for universal human and civil rights.
Norton got the only House vote on statehood, in 1993, not long after being elected to Congress. Almost two-thirds of the Democrats and one Republican voted for the bill, giving it a strong start, but the Democrats lost the House majority in the next Congress. Since that vote, Norton was able to get the D.C. House Voting Rights Act through the House in 2007 and the Senate in 2009, which would have given D.C. a voting House member, had it not been derailed by a National Rifle Association-backed amendment that would have wiped out D.C.’s gun safety laws.
On Monday, September 22, 2014, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee held a hearing on the D.C. statehood bill, the New Columbia Admission Act (H.R. 292/S. 132), sponsored by Norton and Senator Tom Carper (D-DE), the chairman of the committee. Prior to the historic hearing, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and a leading Republican constitutional scholar and practitioner, Viet Dinh, concluded that a challenge to the constitutionality of the District of Columbia statehood bill may be outside the courts’ purview, and that, in any case, there is likely a constitutional basis for the D.C. statehood bill. CRS is the non-partisan legislative branch agency that provides legal and policy analysis to Congress, and Dinh is a former U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy in the George W. Bush administration and a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University Law Center.
Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), who as Senate Majority Leader rarely cosponsors bills, made an enthusiastic public announcement of his cosponsorship of the statehood bill at the unveiling of D.C.’s Frederick Douglass statue in the Capitol in June 2013. The other top three Democratic Senate leaders, Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL), Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Patty Murray (D-WA), are also cosponsors of the New Columbia Admission Act. In July 2014, President Obama announced his support for D.C. statehood at a My Brother’s Keeper event. The President has long been on record in support of three primary elements of statehood, budget autonomy and legislative autonomy, which are in his Fiscal Year 2015 budget; and, voting rights. Residents were elated when the President rode across town at his second inauguration in a presidential limousine with the iconic ‘Taxation without Representation’ D.C. license plate.
Although the right to vote on the House floor in the Committee of the Whole, which Norton first won in the 103rd Congress, was approved by the federal courts, Norton proceeds without a vote to pass D.C. bills, successfully fight attacks on home rule, get D.C. rights traditionally afforded to states, expand home rule, get significant new support for D.C. statehood, and build unprecedented momentum for budget autonomy.
Keeping D.C. Running Through Fiscal Year 2014
In the agreement to end the 16-day federal government shutdown, Norton got a provision included to keep D.C. open for the rest of fiscal year 2014 at fiscal year 2014 levels while the federal government continues to run on a short-term continuing resolution until January 15, spending at 2013 levels. Working on several fronts, Norton first convinced Republicans to pass a bill to allow the city to remain open temporarily. When that bill was not passed by the Senate, she raised the issue with the president at a White House meeting with House Democrats. She then negotiated with the administration, Senate Democrats and House Republicans to achieve the provision that allows D.C. to spend its local funds and remain open for the remainder of fiscal year 2014.
Unprecedented Momentum for Budget Autonomy
Progress with Republicans and Democrats this year on budget autonomy showed that 2014 could be the year for budget autonomy. The shutdown fertilized momentum for budget autonomy, which has been building with bipartisan support from the administration and the Congress, as well as the referendum that Norton has kept Congress from disturbing. The president, for the first time in an administration’s budget, included legislative language for budget autonomy in his fiscal year 2014 budget. The positive trajectory rose to a new level when the Senate Appropriations Committee approved the president’s budget autonomy provision. In addition, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) got his own budget autonomy bill passed in committee. He and Norton are working to perfect final language. Finally, Republicans, in arguing for the Republican continuing resolution to keep D.C. open during the federal government shutdown, made strong arguments that the city should be able to spend its own money.
Laying the Groundwork for Statehood: The First D.C. Statue in the Capitol
Despite years of rebuffs by opponents of D.C. statehood, this year Norton got a bill passed that treats D.C. like the 50 states. Her bill brought a statue to the U.S. Capitol representing the District, the only jurisdiction that is not yet a state to have a statue there, along with the 50 states. House and Senate Republican and Democratic leadership sponsored the unveiling of D.C.’s Frederick Douglass statue, with Vice President Joe Biden and members of the Douglass family joining Norton and others to speak at the ceremony. Reinforcing the significance for statehood, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) offered a forceful and unequivocal call for Congress to grant the District of Columbia statehood during his remarks at the ceremony. Reid also announced that he had become a cosponsor of the Senate companion to Norton’s D.C. statehood bill, a rare act for a Majority Leader, who cosponsor few bills. In January, Senator Thomas Carper (D-DE), chair of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which has jurisdiction over D.C., introduced the Senate counterpart to the Norton statehood bill and later promised a D.C. statehood hearing in 2014.
Attacks on D.C. Home Rule Combatted
In 2014, Norton kept the D.C. budget autonomy referendum from being wiped out, despite language in a House appropriations bill committee report questioning its legality.
After Norton kept Representative Trent Franks’ (R-AZ) post-20-week D.C. abortion ban bill from coming to the House floor, he amended the bill to instead make it apply nationwide. Norton worked with her allies to keep the D.C. abortion ban bill, also introduced in the Senate, from going to the floor in either chamber this year. Ironically, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), the Senate sponsor of the D.C. abortion ban bill, initially said he could not support a nationwide abortion ban bill because it would violate ‘states’ rights,’ although he later came around.
Norton also defeated attempts to reattach riders to the D.C.’s appropriations bill. As the fiscal year 2014 D.C. appropriations bill process began, she held a Save D.C. Home Rule press conference with Mayor Gray and national gun safety, needle exchange, and reproductive rights groups, whose issues often have been used to attack D.C. home rule. The groups alerted members of the House and Senate that their members nationwide would be keeping close tabs on anti-home-rule amendments and bills.
As every year, Norton faced bills to eliminate all or parts of D.C.’s gun laws. She worked with the Senate to remove from the final fiscal year 2014 Defense Authorization bill a House amendment expressing the sense of the Congress that active duty military personnel in their private capacity should be exempt from gun safety laws here, but not from such laws in any other states. A bill to strike all of D.C.’s gun laws was reintroduced at the end of this year, during the week of the one-year anniversary of the Newtown shooting. Norton, who called this timing an act of “insensitive disrespect,” was the only elected official to speak at the National Cathedral Vigil in remembrance of the shooting and all victims of gun violence throughout the nation.
More Equality for the District of Columbia
Norton’s Hatch Act National Capital Region Parity Act became effective, giving D.C. residents who are federal employees the right to run for partisan political office in local elections as independents, which their regional counterparts have had since the 1940s. The bill enables a significant segment of D.C.’s population to more fully participate in the political life of the city.
In a home-rule victory for the District and its women, D.C. is now treated as a state under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). The District will now get the same amount of funding as states, at 1.5% of the total appropriated by Congress, rather than the 0.25% allotted to four of the territories. This change maximized funding to combat the epidemic of domestic violence in D.C.
Norton got a provision included in the Senate’s farm bill that enables the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) to receive federal funding for forestry research, a victory for the equal treatment of the District. Although UDC is the nation’s only urban public land-grant university, without this provision, its college of agriculture has not been eligible for those funds.
Federal Worker Protections
Norton, a senior member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has jurisdiction over federal employees, made special efforts to protect these repeatedly beleaguered employees during perhaps the worst year in decades for federal employees, when hundreds of thousands faced both sequester furloughs with loss of pay and a third year of pay freezes.
Norton has been a leader in fighting for improved wages for workers employed by federal contractors, speaking at their demonstrations and participating in Change to Win and Good Jobs Nation meetings with workers. In July 2014, Norton introduced the Restore Opportunity, Strengthen, and Improve the Economy (ROSIE) Act at a rally with hundreds of federal contract workers from Change to Win in front of Union Station. The ROSIE Act incentivizes federal government contractors to support collective bargaining, pay living wages and benefits, to stop wage theft, and avoid paying CEOs excessive salaries. Norton has called on the President to put the ROSIE Act into an EO. She also plans to introduce a bill when the House returns in November that would direct federal agencies to give points in federal contractor competition for businesses paying decent wages and benefits to their entire workforce and that permit their employees to unionize so that wages can become a private matter for bargaining between the contractor and its employees. Following rallies by federal contract workers and Change to Win, some of which Norton participated in, President Obama issued an Executive Order (EO) in February 2014 that raised the minimum wage for federal contract workers to $10.10 per hour. However, Congress has failed to raise the minimum wage for workers nationwide, from its current $7.25 per hour.
Protecting Letter Carriers, Mail Delivery, and the Integrity of the U.S. Postal Service
The Oversight and Government Reform Committee has special jurisdication over the United States Postal Service (USPS).
Congress does not fund the USPS, but requires the USPS, unlike any other federal agency or private organization, to prefund future retiree health benefits, taking billions in revenue from operations. Norton and other congressional Democrats have offered several alternatives for relaxing the prefunding to allow more postal revenue to go to service, which is the fourth most trusted company in America.
In October 2014, Norton called on Postmaster Donahoe to reconsider the consolidation of more than 80 mail-processing centers in January 2015 that will delay First-Class and other mail delivery, without public input. A recent USPS Inspector General report said the decision to consolidate several mail-processing centers across the United States should have included comment from the public, as required by law, but USPS moved forward without notice to the public. Norton believes that cutting services that customers have become accustomed to will not only lead to customer dissatisfaction, but it has the potential of affecting USPS revenue.
In August 2014, Norton held a postal service roundtable following the killing of a letter carrier doing late night deliveries, as well as a surge of complaints from residents. The Roundtable brought together the District of Columbia Postmaster, Gerald A. Roane, Cynthia Goodwin of the National Association of Letter Carriers, Dena Briscoe of the American Postal Workers Union, ANC 3F ChairmanAdam Tope, and Brennan Dorn and Gail Broeckel, two District residents who shared their experiences with local postal service in the city. Among the recommendations were:
In February 2014, Norton joined Representative Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and other members of the Maryland congressional delegation in a letter to Donahue urging USPS to immediately devise a plan to protect worker safety in inclement weather and the evenings, and to ensure that no homes or businesses experience multiple-day delays. In 2013, she wrote to USPS Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe after the death of USPS letter carrier Tyson Barnette to request that further efforts be made to ensure the safety of letter carriers at night.
Norton’s new Subcommittee Leadership Post: A Prime Position to Bring Transportation Benefits to the District
Norton’s new post as the Ranking Member of the Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee’s Highways and Transit Subcommittee will give her and the District a lead seat at the table as the subcommittee drafts a new surface transportation reauthorization bill next year. She now has jurisdiction over Metro, streetcars, buses and other surface transportation in addition to highways, bridges, roads and infrastructure development. To prepare for the surface transportation reauthorization bill, Norton brought in six top industry experts for a dialogue with committee Democrats to increase understanding of the emerging issues surrounding surface transportation throughout the country. As a longtime proponent of protecting the environment, Norton also will use the reauthorization bill to provide for greener transportation and greater use of technology to reduce congestion. In November, she test drove an electric car to learn more about new all-electric transportation technology, which she believes can be the wave of the near-future.
Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management
Economic Development Subcommittee Benefits to Continue for D.C.
Norton was able to maintain momentum for her career-long priority on economic development in D.C. by continuing her service as a senior member of the T&I Committee’s Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management. The subcommittee has enabled Norton to develop two new neighborhoods in the District – NoMa and Capitol Riverfront, and to begin the revitalization of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue in Ward 8, which is already benefitting from the new U.S. Department of Homeland Security complex under construction.
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Long-Term Transportation Funding
Norton believes that we cannot address our infrastructure deficit by just continuing to provide baseline levels of funding. In the 113th Congress, Norton introduced, as a courtesy at the request of the Administration, the GROW AMERICA Act (Generating Renewal, Opportunity, and Work with Accelerated Mobility, Efficiency, and Rebuilding of Infrastructure and Communities throughout America Act). The four-year bill is a timely contribution as Congress works towards passage of a long-term surface transportation authorization, and should provide guidance and ideas as Congress develops legislation to set the future course of these vital programs. The GROW AMERICA Act recognizes that America has fallen behind on infrastructure funding, and calls for increasing investments in modernizing the nation’s roads, bridges, railways, and transit systems.
Union Station
The Congresswoman is committed to a streamlined and congestion-free Union Station. The current traffic pattern at Columbus Circle is relatively new and is based on a ten-year study undertaken by the District of Columbia Department of Transportation (DDOT). Union Station Redevelopment Corporation (USRC) and the developer that oversees the circle have hired additional people to monitor the traffic to ensure vehicles are using the proper lanes, but there is little evidence of their presence or effectiveness. Norton’s office was informed that USRC is also part of a working group with the District of Columbia, the Metropolitan Police Department, Amtrak, and the National Park Service that is looking at ways to produce signage that will aid drivers.
In October 2014, Norton hosted a roundtable, entitled “Solving Traffic Congestion at Union Station and Preparing for a Makeover Inside,” to discuss a plan to resolve traffic congestion, plans for development at Union Station and short-term and long-term goals for improvements. After the roundtable, Norton sent a letter to the panelists -- Bob Vogel, National Park Service (NPS) Superintendent of the National Mall and Memorial Parks, Beverly K. Swaim-Staley, President & CEO of USRC), and Joe Press of Union Station Investco -- asking them to consider a switch in the lanes passenger vehicles are permitted to use to put them closer to Union Station. Norton said it has proved difficult for District of Columbia residents and visitors arriving at Union Station by passenger vehicle to rush out of their vehicles and across multiple lanes of traffic in time to catch buses or trains, given the current lane designations. In her letter, Norton asked that USRC, Union Station Investco, and NPS sit down together and consider an agreement that could achieve a switch in the vehicles permitted in each lane, so that cabs would continue to use the first lane, passenger vehicles the second lane, and tour buses and any additional passenger vehicles would use the third lane.
Norton continues to work with the appropriate agencies to ensure patrons of Union Station have safer and better access to Union Station.
Virginia Avenue Tunnel Project
CSX’s Virginia Avenue Tunnel Project is privately funded, but there are some federal properties that will be impacted by construction necessitating the FHWA and DDOT approvals. Norton has been working closely with the community, and has hosted two community meetings with the surrounding community near Capitol Hill, the FHWA, DDOT, and CSX. A number of residents have raised concerns about the proximity and duration of the proposed tunnel construction, which would run close to their homes. In June 2014, Norton requested that the review period for the project be extended from 30 to 90 days and an additional public meeting on the Final Environmental Impact Statement. FHWA agreed to extend the review period to 60 days, and a second public meeting took place on July 31, 2014. She also attended a July 2014 public meeting, the first of two on the Final EIS, hosted by FHWA, DDOT and CSX. In August, she sent a letter to Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Acting Administrator Gregory G. Nadeau urging the FHWA to delay the issuance of the CSX Virginia Avenue Tunnel Project’s Record of Decision (ROD) until September 15, 2014, to allow oversight of the District of Columbia Department of Transportation (DDOT) by the D.C. Council, which has requested more time to do so. The ROD was delayed, as Norton requested.