Providing for Consideration of h.R. 5016, Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2015, and Providing for Consideration of H.R. 4718, Bonus Depreciation Modified and Made Permanent

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. NORTON. I want to thank my good friend from New York for yielding and for her work on this rule.

Mr. Speaker, A Congress controlled by Members trying to reduce the Federal footprint at every turn ought to be the first to reject two amendments in the Financial Services appropriation, which fly in the face of their own core philosophy.

First is the abortion amendment that would keep the District of Columbia from spending its own local funds on abortions for low-income women.

Mr. Speaker, 17 States that are represented in this House spend their own local funds in this way, and we are determined to fight until the district's low-income women have the same reproductive health rights as the women who live in those 17 States.

There is a second bill--a second amendment that targets the District of Columbia and its marijuana decriminalization law at the same time that the States are rapidly moving in the same direction.

Eighteen of them, before the District even got there, have decriminalized marijuana. Two States have legalized marijuana, 23 States have legalized medical marijuana, and a recent Pew Research poll found that more than half of the American people support marijuana legislation.

Mr. Speaker, this amendment that targets the District of Columbia is authored by Representative Andy Harris of Maryland. Maryland is one of the States that has decriminalized marijuana.

Now, he couldn't convince his own State, where the voters are accountable to him, not to decriminalize marijuana.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. NORTON. I appreciate the generosity of the ranking member.

He wants to come to this floor and try to convince this body, where not a single Member is accountable to the residents of the District of Columbia, that it should not allow the District to decriminalize its marijuana laws. I don't know why the Members from those 18 States have decriminalized, but let me tell you why they were decriminalized in the District of Columbia. They were decriminalized for racial justice reasons. We discovered, through a scientific study, that African Americans were eight times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than Whites, even though Whites and Blacks in the District of Columbia and in the United States of America use marijuana at the same rate.

Forty years ago, this Congress passed the Home Rule Act leaving local matters to the District of Columbia, just like your local matters are left home. We demand the same respect for local control for the District of Columbia residents who are full American citizens, like everybody else who represents people on this floor.

We demand that our American citizens have the same respect for their local control that on this floor, that every day, you demand for your own residents.

I thank the ranking member.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the generosity of the gentleman for yielding.

First, let me set straight that the District of Columbia gets not one single benefit that any other Member who pays taxes--except we pay taxes without representation--not one single benefit that is any different from what other members get.

Secondly, on marijuana decriminalization, I respect the differences we have there, and the States are experimenting now. The District has only decriminalized marijuana, and recently, a member of the council introduced an amendment--which I bet you the other 18 States have not done--to educate our young people about marijuana, so that they don't go off and try it.

Nobody is for smoking marijuana--I wish we hadn't smoked all those cigarettes, there would be millions of people alive if we hadn't--but we really don't want to see people go to jail for possessing marijuana, and we don't want to live in a city where the only people who get arrested for possessing marijuana are people who look like me.

This is a city full of college students. They don't get arrested. Those who get arrested are African Americans because the police patrol those areas more sternly than others. We are asking for racial justice, but above all, we are asking for local control.

I want to say one thing about your citing of the Constitution. You are absolutely right. The Constitution gives the Congress control, but Congress passed, 40 years ago, the Home Rule Act, and that Home Rule Act was Congress' understanding that there ought to be no Members of this House who don't have total control over their own local money and over their own local affairs.

We ask for the same respect, and I thank the gentleman.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source