Eleanor Norton

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, my thanks to Representative Chris Shays for not giving up on H.R. 1, the Congressional Accountability Act. The gentleman from Connecticut should feel doubly rewarded since this very bill passed the House once before--during the 103d Congress. Since the Senate chose to turn it down, we are doing the right thing in proceeding without hesitation to enact the Congressional Accountability Act again today. As a member of the Joint Committee on the Organization of the Congress, I took a special interest in applying our laws to Members. I felt obligated to do so as a past chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which has jurisdiction over many of the laws at issue today in this bill. Give the House credit, however, for having years ago applied these laws to itself. What has been missing was not the laws but an enforcement mechanism independent of the House. I am particularly proud that this mechanism is the central contribution of the Congressional Accountability Act. This bill more than meets the standard set by those who sought passage of a law to apply congressional acts to the Congress itself. H.R. 1 sets a higher standard. For example, H.R. 1 allows employees to go immediately to court or to an administrative hearing to initiate a claim of discrimination. As a lawyer and former professional in the field, I have some reservations about eliminating the useful and ancient rule that claimants exhaust administrative remedies before proceeding to more costly and cumbersome court processes. The courts are already clogged. These days they should be reserved as much as possible for matters such as criminal trials. Cost-free administrative resolution of claims of the kind encompassed by H.R. 1 is always less expensive and often far more yielding of appropriate remedies in shorter periods of time. Nevertheless, if this bill passes we must celebrate the choice to allow Members and employees to submit to an administrative process where hearing officers are selected from a rotating list of professionals recommended by the Administrative Conference of the United States and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. The independence of the factfinding process from control of the House is extraordinary for a legislative body and does great honor to the House. I hope that this time Members in the majority will insist that Republicans in the Senate take the lead of their Republican colleagues in the House and make the Congressional Accountability Act the law of the land. I am pleased to support H.R. 1.

Mr. NORTON

Mr. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, we have heard all day that this is an historic day. For me and for the four other delegates, it is historic as well. Two years ago, for the first time ever, our names were added to the official roster of this House. Today, the rules propose to erase those names. The courts would not erase them. The courts said that the House could empower the Delegates. The courts said that Members could constitutionally democratize their own House. If the erasures occur, it will be by our own hand and by our own rules. Oh, that is a bittersweet thing for the Delegates, especially for this Delegate, who represents 600,000 taxpaying citizens. In 1993 I wrote a legal memorandum that erased for the first time in 200 years part of their plight--paying Federal taxes while having no representation on this floor. Today we are told, forget that. Go back to where you started. Well, we cannot go back, Mr. Speaker. I ask my colleagues to take a leap of imagination with me and put yourself in my place. Suppose your constituents paid $1.6 billion annually to the Treasury of the United States. Suppose your constituents were third per capita in Federal taxes in the United States of America. Suppose your constituents paid more taxes than each of six states. How would you feel when you watched other Members vote on your taxes, and I mean local taxes, my friends, vote on your laws, and I mean local laws, my friends, because our local business comes before this House. The vote to be erased means nothing to this body, but it means everything to the taxpaying citizens I represent. After all, a re-vote will be taken if delegate votes are determinative. You claim that you will democratize this House, and in some measure you will, but not in this measure. I suspect that the denial today is not an act of meanness, but an act rooted in the partisanship of the past, rather than in the events in which you take such pride today. For you, this was a plot of the Democratic leadership. Forget that, my friends. It was my plot, my memo, my taxpayers. My Republican friends, I say to you today that there is no need to return to the partisanship of the past now. You have won. Leave it be. Let it rest. Be as gracious in victory as you have been tenacious in earning that victory. Restore the vote to those who live in the houses, in the neighborhoods, and in the city of the great House of Representatives. Mr. Speaker, editorial opinion from one end of the political spectrum to the other has been unanimous in support of my right to vote. I submit these editorials for printing in the Record. [From the Washington Times, Dec. 6, 1994] Taxation, Representation and the District Two years ago, Republicans picked up 10 seats in the House of Representatives, despite the Democratic victory at the top of the ticket. Not long thereafter, D.C. House Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, who had no voting rights in the House, floated a proposal whereby she would be able to participate in all House votes taken in committee, including the committee of the whole, in which most of the House's important work is done, short of final passage of legislation. Soon, however, the four non-voting territorial delegates to the House--one each from Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa--got themselves included in the proposal as well. All five are Democrats, as it happens. And Republicans, with some justification, screamed bloody murder, accusing the Democrats of trying to regain the Democratic majority's rule-making powers half of what Democrats had lost at the polls. The delegate-voting proposal was subsequently modified such that in votes by which legislation is sent to the floor of the House from the committee of the whole by less than a five-vote margin, another vote must be held without the participation of the five delegates. Republicans nevertheless sued, but federal courts ruled, correctly, that the House itself is constitutionally empowered to propagate such a rule for delegate voting. Well, now there's a new congressional majority: Republican. So what to do about delegate voting? No doubt there will substantial GOP sentiment for simply undoing what many regard as a blatant partisan powergrab. The matter is worth second thoughts, however. Republicans take note, for this is an argument that ought to be dear to GOP hearts: There is a major difference between the situation of the District and that of the four territories. It can be summed up in one figure: $1.6 billion. That is the total amount of federal income taxes paid each year by residents of the District of Columbia. It compares with $0 from the four territories. And it is near the very top compared with congressional districts nationwide. District residents deserve some consideration in exchange. Mrs. Norton's retention of her limited voting powers--which, by the way, hardly constitute ``representation'' commensurate with taxation--are worthy of serious discussion. And let's also begin the discussion about whether justice wouldn't be better served by a District whose government receives no federal payment--but whose residents are not taxed by the federal government, either.