Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton—the elected representative from the District of Columbia who, in a crime against democracy, does not get a vote despite representing 600,000 taxpaying American citizens in the nation's capital—is fired up.
Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton Upset Over Treatment of DC During Shutdown Resolution Talks: MyFoxDC.com
"We are absolutely outraged. This is the functional equivalent of bombing innocent civilians,” she said.
“It’s time that the District of Columbia told the Congress to go straight to hell,” Norton continued after she said a rider attached to a bill that could offer resolution prevented D.C. government from spending its own tax dollars on funds for abortions for low income women.
“If these Republicans insist that, if they don’t get the whole pie, they’ll take the whole country down with them,” she continued, “then we have got to make them pay the price.”
A government shutdown will be a disaster for DC, leaving a sizable percentage of our citizens out of work and without pay, potentially leaving some without the means to pay rent, buy groceries, or get around.
It will also impact the daily lives of those of us who don't work for the federal government; if the government shuts down, DC will be prohibited by law from spending our own city funds to pick up trash, keep libraries and the DMV open, or enforce parking regulations.
Those in the 50 enfranchised states will still be able to get a new driver's license on Monday if the federal government shuts down; only the citizens of DC are subject to the indignity of a government that has to have Congress's permission to license its own citizens to drive or keep its own libraries open.
Additionally, if a budget passes with Republicans' narrow social-agenda riders attached, the people of DC will still suffer—since unlike those in the 50 enfranchised states, Congress feels that it has the right to tyrannically override our own elected city government and tell us how to spend our own city's money. Rep. Norton lays it out—telling DC that we can't spend our own city money on abortions for low-income women is a travesty.
Eleanor Holmes Norton is right: If Congress is bound and determined to infringe on our rights even further, the people of DC need to tell Congress to go straight to hell.
We need more Eleanor Holmes Nortons in Congress—people who are willing to call the Republicans out on their bullshit and tell it like it is, leaders who are fired up and pissed off about the way Republicans want to destroy this country in order to enrich the very few and enact a narrow-minded social agenda.
But we also need to fight to give this Eleanor Holmes Norton—who, I'll remind you, represents 600,000 taxpaying American citizens living in Congress's own backyard—the vote in Congress she, and the people of the District of Columbia, are entitled to as Americans.
And we need to fight to ensure that she is joined in Congress by two Senators representing the STATE of the District of Columbia, and that the people of DC's right to govern our own affairs isn't subject to the meddling of any Congress with a social agenda.
Email Rep. Norton and thank her for her message here. Tell her you stand with her and that the people of this country have her back.
And call, email, and write your Representative and Senators and make it clear: We expect action on DC statehood. It is unconscionable that 600,000 American citizens living in Congress's own backyard are relegated to second-class status. This needs to change now.