Eleanor Norton

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce the Open and Transparent Smithsonian Act to further ensure that the Smithsonian Institution is accountable to the public for the taxpayer funds it receives. This bill provides that, for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the Privacy Act, the Smithsonian shall be considered a Federal agency. The bill complements my Smithsonian Modernization Act and my Smithsonian Free Admission Act. I introduce these bills today, to make the Smithsonian accountable for the 70 percent of its funding that comes from annual Federal appropriations. Although the Smithsonian was created by Congress as a Federal trust, it receives the great majority of its funding from the Federal Government, much like Federal agencies, and had always been treated as a Federal agency. However, in the 1990s, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that the Smithsonian is not a Federal agency for purposes of FOIA and the Privacy Act. Indeed, the Smithsonian's website clearly states that it is ``not an Executive Branch agency, and FOIA does not apply to the Smithsonian.'' This lack of transparency is of great concern, particularly in light of the Smithsonian's recent history of secrecy and corruption. In 2007, an independent review committee found that the Smithsonian Board of Regents had violated many principles of good management during the tenure of Lawrence Small as Secretary of the Smithsonian. The report indicated that the Board had failed to provide desperately needed oversight, had overcompensated the Secretary, and had allowed the creation of an ``insular culture.'' The report further found that the Smithsonian's deputy secretary and chief operating officer, Sheila Burke, had frequent absences from her duties because of outside activities, including service on corporate boards, for which she earned more than $1.2 million over 6 years. Importantly, the report indicated that Smithsonian leaders took great measures to keep secret these missteps and mismanagement. While the Smithsonian now has new leaders who are moving away from the mistakes of the past, its transparency should not depend on who is in charge. An entity supported primarily by the Federal Government must be accountable to the American people. The American people have a right to know that their interests are being served. I urge my colleagues to support this measure.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce the Smithsonian Free Admission Act, to reinforce 170 years of consistent Smithsonian policy of admitting the public to all permanent exhibits without charge. This policy has served the nation well. Families come to Washington to learn about their country through its public monuments and sites. While the private amenities here can be costly for the average family, Americans have looked forward to the free museums and other official offerings for generations. The Smithsonian's free admission policy reflects the intent of its founder, John Smithson, whose gift to the Federal Government carried the condition that the Smithsonian be established to increase the knowledge of the public, free of charge. The bill establishing the Smithsonian, introduced by Senator William C. Preston on February 17, 1841, stated explicitly that the Smithsonian would ``preserve and exhibit with no fee'' all works of art and science. This intent and tradition was interrupted without notice to Congress by the Smithsonian's Board of Regents with its casual comment that the Smithsonian would charge an admission fee for a permanent exhibit for the first time in its history, and on February 14, 2008, the Smithsonian opened the National Museum of Natural History's Butterfly Pavilion, a permanent exhibit, and instituted a fee for admission. Congress, of course, not the Board of Regents, should decide so basic a policy, especially when it departs from long-standing public policy. The admission fee for the Butterfly Pavilion sets a harmful precedent for future permanent exhibits, making it difficult to deny other Smithsonian entities from charging a fee and possibly encouraging other Smithsonian entities to structure their exhibits to fit the Butterfly Pavilion model. The Butterfly Pavilion opened on February 14, 2008. Although the Smithsonian had previously charged fees for films and shows, the National Air and Space Museum's Planetarium, and the National Zoo's Christmas Lights special, the $6 admission fee for the Butterfly Pavilion marked the first time an admission fee was charged for a permanent exhibit. My bill requires a report to Congress in advance of any proposed admission fees for permanent exhibits and requires the Secretary of the Smithsonian to submit a plan for funding the Butterfly Pavilion without an admission fee. The Smithsonian Modernization Act, which I am also introducing today, addresses the Smithsonian's fundraising capacity by restructuring and expanding the Smithsonian's Board, from a board almost half of whose members are public officials to a board consisting solely of private citizens, who will have greater experience and fundraising capacity than public officials. The Smithsonian Modernization Act and similar measures, not admission fees, provide the most realistic vehicles to raise funds for the Smithsonian without cost to the government or to the public. Admission fees can bring in only token amounts. According to CRS, the Smithsonian has long prided itself on ``free access.'' Admission fees are not the answer for taxpayers, who have already paid through the Federal Government's 70 percent contribution to this public institution's annual budget. Federal taxpayers do not expect to pay again through an admission fee to a federally-financed institution. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce three bills to modernize the Smithsonian Institution and to enhance its governance and fundraising ability, in keeping with the recommendations of a number of experts, including the Smithsonian Independent Review Committee, chaired by former U.S. Comptroller General Charles Bowsher. This bill, the Smithsonian Modernization Act, makes changes to the Smithsonian's governance structure by expanding and changing the composition of its Board of Regents, from 17 members, which includes six Members of Congress, the Vice President of the United States, and the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, to 21 members, comprised solely of private citizens. This change will strengthen both the Smithsonian's governance and fundraising capacity, and it is the first significant change in this old and revered institution since it was established in 1846. The second bill, the Smithsonian Free Admission Act of 2010, seeks to preserve the long-standing free admission policy for permanent exhibits at an institution that is largely funded by the federal government, as envisioned by James Smithson, its founder. Finally, the Open and Transparent Smithsonian Act of 2011 will apply the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act to the Smithsonian in the same manner they apply to federal agencies. The Smithsonian Institution is a unique and irreplaceable cultural, historical, educational and artistic complex without any public or private counterpart in the world. Since its founding, the Smithsonian has developed an extraordinary array of world-class museums, galleries, educational showplaces and unique research centers, including 19 museums and galleries, nine research facilities, the National Zoo, and the forthcoming National Museum of African American History and Culture, which has been approved by Congress and is now seeking funding from the private sector for construction. The Smithsonian has grown with donations from American culture and life, and financial contributions, but most of its funding continues to come from federal appropriations. Despite receiving 70 percent of its funding from the federal government, the Smithsonian has long had serious infrastructure and other needs. Congress must help the Smithsonian strengthen its ability to build resources beyond what taxpayers are able to provide. The most important step Congress could take today is to rescue the Smithsonian from its 19th century governance structure, which keeps it from accessing needed and available private resources and limits close and critical oversight. The Smithsonian Modernization Act bill provides a governance structure befitting the Smithsonian's unique complexity. In no small part, the difficulty the Smithsonian has faced results from limitations inherent in its antiquated governance structure. The existing structure may have fit the Smithsonian over 170 years ago, but today the structure has proven to be a relic that does a disservice to the Smithsonian. The present governance structure places immense responsibility on dedicated but overextended Members of the House and Senate, the Vice President of the United States and the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. These federal officials comprise almost half of the Smithsonian Board of Regents, and must perform their fiduciary duties as board members while giving first priority to their sworn responsibilities as important federal officials. In 2007, an independent review committee found that the Board had violated principles of good management during the tenure of the former Secretary of the Smithsonian, Lawrence Small, allowing him to create an ``insular culture.'' The Committee's report indicated that the Board had failed to provide desperately needed oversight and had overcompensated Mr. Small. The report also found that Sheila P. Burke, the Smithsonian's then-deputy secretary and chief operating officer, had frequent absences from her duties because of outside activities, including service on corporate boards, for which she earned more than $1.2 million over six years. Further, the Smithsonian's then-Business Ventures chief, Gary Beer, was dismissed for financial indiscretions. This unprecedented crisis, caused by unprecedented controversies and irresponsible risks, put into sharp focus the need for new revenue streams and for a modern governance structure. The first full-blown scandal in the Smithsonian's history, replete with embarrassing media coverage, damaged its reputation and perhaps the confidence of potential contributors. The poor judgment and overreaching of Smithsonian personnel during that period requires new and concentrated oversight by citizens for whom the Smithsonian would command priority attention. The Board of Regents, of course, has taken some important action on its own. After irregularities were uncovered by the media, the Board responded to the controversies by creating a governance committee, chaired by Patty Stonesifer, a Regent and former chief executive officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with a mandate to comprehensively review the policies and practices of the Smithsonian and how the Board conducts its oversight of the institution. The Board also established an Independent Review Committee (IRC), chaired by former U.S. Comptroller General Charles A. Bowsher, to review the issues arising from an Inspector General's report and the Board's response, and related Smithsonian practices. The IRC was forthright in its investigation and recommendations. The IRC stated explicitly that the root cause of the problems at the Smithsonian was an antiquated governance structure, which led to failures in governance and management. According to the IRC, the Board must assume a fiduciary duty that carries a ``major commitment of time and effort, a reputational risk, and potentially, financial liability.'' The IRC further argued that the Smithsonian, with a budget of over $1 billion a year, must have a Board who ``act as true fiduciaries and who have both the time and the experience to assume the responsibilities of setting strategy and providing oversight.'' The IRC cited a lack of clarity of the roles of the U.S. Vice President and Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court on the Board, and said that ``it is not feasible to expect the Chief Justice to devote the hours necessary to serve as a fiduciary agent.'' The same observation could be made of the Members of the House and Senate who serve on the Board. The IRC recommended that the Board increase the level of expertise and the number of members to ensure that the Regents have sufficient time and attention to dedicate to the Smithsonian. The Smithsonian's own governance committee identified several Board weaknesses, concluding that the Board did not receive or demand the reports necessary for competent decision-making, that the staff whom the Board depended upon for oversight inquiries did not have direct access to information, and that the inability of staff to communicate red flags ``crippled'' internal compliance and oversight. Only Congress, with the concurrence of the president, can amend the Smithsonian Charter. The last change to the Board's structure occurred over 30 years ago, but only to increase the number of private citizens on the Board from six to nine. The number of Regents, however, is not the root problem. Although the bill expands the Board from 17 to 21 members, it, most importantly, brings the Board into alignment with modern public and private boards by requiring all Regents to be private citizens. The search for private funds by Smithsonian management was a major cause of the recent controversy. Faced with crippling budget problems, the Regents must be free to give new and unprecedented attention and energy to finding and helping to raise substantially more funds from private sources. The new structure envisioned by the bill will improve oversight and the capacity for fundraising from private sources. Unlike federal officials, private citizens are entirely free to assist in private fundraising. Most importantly, private citizens will have sufficient expertise to serve on the Board, and will be able to devote the personal time and attention necessary to fulfill the fiduciary responsibility that comes with serving such a venerable and complex institution. The bill preserves and strengthens the traditional role of the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate in selecting Board members, while eliminating the self-perpetuating role of the Board in selecting private citizens for the Board. The Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate will each send 12 recommendations to the President of the United States, who will select the 21 members of the Board of Regents. Considering the seriousness of the findings of the Board's own governance committee and of the IRC, the changes prescribed by the bill are nothing short of necessary. The reform of the fiduciary and governance issues that have brought public criticism to this iconic American institution must begin with the indispensable step of making the Smithsonian's governance consistent with that of similar institutions today. Only congressional attention can reassure the public that the controversies that recently besieged the Smithsonian will not recur. In the face of an unprecedented public controversy, Congress would be remiss if it left the Smithsonian to its own oversight and devices alone for improvement. I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding and for her strong work on this bill. Madam Speaker, this bill is unprecedented in a number of ways. It is unprecedented in that it uniquely affects my district, and yet I was not allowed to testify at the hearing of the Judiciary Committee where it was considered. It is unprecedented in its attack on a woman's right to choose, going well beyond the Hyde amendment. And it is unprecedented in seeking to federalize the local funds of the District of Columbia. Section 309 of this bill would make permanent the ban in the recent 2011 spending bill that keeps the District from spending its own local funds on abortions for poor women. That's bad enough, but the party that came to power even to devolve Federal power back to the States is engaged in the reverse process in this bill, in federalizing what has always been understood in our Constitution to be local power and, worse, local money and deciding how it should be spent. It is a dictatorship over local funds. It goes against every principle that the majority claims to support when it cites the Constitution. It goes against the accepted practice, a practice you can do nothing about in the States, where 17 States have, of course, spent their own local funds on abortions for poor women for decades, recognizing that this could not be done with Federal money. The District of Columbia does not ask for 1 cent of Federal money. In the same way, the District of Columbia demands that its local funds be kept local for us as for every other jurisdiction of this body. Congressional Black Caucus, Washington, DC, May 3, 2011. Dear Senators Boxer, Cantwell, Feinstein, Gillibrand, Hagan, Klobuchar, Landrieu, McCaskill, Mikulski, Murray, Shaheen, and Stabenow: We, the women of the Congressional Black Caucus, write for two reasons. First, we want to express our gratitude to you, the Democratic women of the Senate, for successfully blocking the Planned Parenthood rider from the final fiscal year 2011 continuing resolution (CR). The rider was an attack on the health and lives of all American women, especially women of modest means. The public conditioning of your support for the CR on the exclusion of the rider made the critical difference. We agreed with your strong position, which showed the country that you would not abandon women in a tough fight. Although our party is in the minority in the House, we are ready to join with you to defeat future Republican attacks on women's health. However, we are deeply disappointed that low-income women in the District of Columbia were sacrificed during the CR negotiations. The Administration and Senate Democratic Leadership agreed to re-impose a rider prohibiting the District government from spending its own local taxpayer- raised funds on abortions for low-income women. The poor women in the District have already begun to feel the terrible effects of the rider. Abortions are time-sensitive, and scores of women scheduled for District-funded abortions at a Planned Parenthood clinic immediately had their appointments canceled. This paradox cannot be overlooked. Non- profits in the District, including the DC Abortion Fund which helps D.C. women pay for abortions, are desperately trying to raise funds to mitigate the harm done by the rider. Not only did this concession by Democrats violate our party's long-standing support for reproductive choice and for the District's right to self-government, it was unnecessary. As House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has noted, fifty-nine House Republicans voted against the CR. This means 36 Democratic votes were needed to reach 218 votes for passage. According to media reports, most House Republicans who voted against the CR did so because it did not cut enough spending, not because of the absence of the Planned Parenthood or of any other rider. In fact, the CR was remarkably clean, with only four riders. Only two were controversial, D.C. abortion and a new private school voucher program in the District. It is no wonder that the District felt abandoned. The D.C. abortion rider, as well as every other anti-home- rule rider, was removed during the last four years of Democratic congressional control. This was a historic first that could not have been achieved without your help. As the fiscal year 2012 appropriations process begins, we believe it would be invaluable if you stated, early and publicly, your opposition to the inclusion of the D.C. abortion rider in the fiscal year 2012 appropriations bill. This is perhaps the only way to keep it out of the bill after Democrats agreed to it in the CR. Such a statement would not only help in fiscal year 2012, it would discourage House Republicans from escalating their attacks on women in the District, which are already underway. An odious anti-choice bill, H.R. 3 (the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act), is due on the House floor this week. It would make the D.C. abortion rider permanent. Although we know you will not allow H.R. 3 to pass in the Senate, House Republicans may feel emboldened to bring up a permanent D.C. abortion ban as a stand-alone bill or to attach it to another bill. The consideration of H.R. 3 on the House floor could provide you an occasion to speak out against it and to note the D.C. provision as a special reason for your opposition. You could also use this opportunity to indicate your opposition to a D.C. abortion rider in the fiscal year 2012 appropriations bill. District women have no vote in Congress and no representation in the Senate. The city's low-income women need the support of women in Congress who not only have a vote, but who have also shown they will stand with women everywhere. Sincerely, Barbara Lee, Karen Bass, Donna Christensen, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Corrine Brown, Yvette Clarke, Donna Edwards, Sheila Jackson Lee, Laura Richardson, Terri Sewell, Marcia Fudge, Gwen Moore, Maxine Waters, Frederica Wilson, Members of Congress.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 362, a bill that honors the 41st and 43rd Presidents of the United States, President George H.W. Bush and President George W. Bush, by naming a United States courthouse located in Midland, Texas, after both of them. This honor is highly fitting, given their devotion to public service and their unique status as only the second father and son pair to serve in our Nation's highest office. Former President George Herbert Walker Bush was the 41st President of the United States. He served our country in many capacities, first as the youngest naval aviator at the time in the United States Navy, and later as a Member of Congress representing the Seventh Congressional District of Texas. After leaving Congress, President Bush served in many prominent public service positions, including ambassador to the United Nations, Chief of the U.S. Liaison Office of the People's Republic of China and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In 1980, President Bush was elected Vice President of the United States under President Ronald Reagan. He was reelected Vice President in 1984. President Bush was then elected President of the United States in 1988. Former President George Walker Bush was the 43rd President of the United States. President George W. Bush was a graduate of Yale University. After his service in the Texas Air National Guard, he graduated from Harvard Business School and began a career in the oil industry. President Bush became the principal owner of the Texas Rangers, a Major League Baseball team. In 1994, he was elected Governor of Texas, a position to which he was reelected in 1998. He was elected President of the United States in 2000 and again in 2004. Upon passage of this legislation, what is now known as the George Mahon Federal Building will be renamed the George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush United States Courthouse and George Mahon Federal Building. I urge my colleagues to support the passage of H.R. 362. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1423, a bill to rename the 4th Avenue post office in Ardmore, Oklahoma, after Army Specialist Micheal E. Phillips, who died at the young age of 19 while serving our country in Iraq. Specialist Phillips was a member of the 101st Airborne Division based in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. He died on February 24, 2008, in Baghdad from wounds sustained when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device. Specialist Phillips loved history and was a true student athlete who ran cross country and played football while attending Ardmore High School. He also excelled at drawing and had been offered admission to the San Francisco Art Institute. But Specialist Phillips had other plans. He volunteered to serve his country before attending college and, by all accounts, was an excellent soldier, always willing to go the extra mile and constantly trying to improve himself. Specialist Phillips made the ultimate sacrifice defending our freedom. We honor his sacrifice today by naming the Post Office on 4th Avenue in Ardmore, Oklahoma, the Specialist Micheal E. Phillips Post Office. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I note that we are honoring Specialist Phillips the day after we learned that the Nation has met its commitment to kill or capture Osama bin Laden. We could not have known when this bill was placed on the calendar that it would come at a time like this when we honor men and women who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan. We cannot help but be grateful for their service, especially today. I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in honoring the Metropolitan Fire Sprinkler, LLC, as the 2011 District of Columbia Small Business of the Year, and its founder and president, District of Columbia native Walter ``Merrill'' Smith. After working in the fire protection industry for over 30 years, Merrill Smith started his own business, Metropolitan Fire Sprinkler, in 2005, and in only a few years, has built one of the fastest growing and most successful small businesses in the District of Columbia. Metropolitan Fire Sprinkler, a minority-owned D.C. business, installs lire protection systems in buildings throughout the Washington metropolitan region. Most recently, Metropolitan Fire Sprinkler was successful in competing to install sprinkler systems in the vast Coast Guard building now under construction at the site of the future U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) headquarters, located on the old St. Elizabeths grounds. Metropolitan Fire Sprinkler had already established a stellar track record on large projects, including the National Naval Medical Center, Gaylord National Harbor, and the Washington Nationals Stadium garage. Merrill Smith sought to establish his own business not only for entrepreneurial reasons, but also because he wanted to provide jobs for residents in his hometown. His initial sources for employees are the District's Department of Employment Services, which serves D.C. residents seeking jobs, and the Road Sprinkler Fitters Local Union 669. Merrill Smith has embraced union labor and is about to train his first female apprentice. Merrill Smith first built his own skills, and then built a business based on his first-hand knowledge of the industry. In the process, he has become an inspiration for young people and unemployed residents, and a model for the community for what hard work, with high quality, can accomplish. Metropolitan Fire Sprinkler is rendering outstanding service to the larger community, to the small business community, and to individuals in our community, all at the same time. Merrill Smith's company makes important contributions to the District of Columbia economy. In competing successfully for contracts, particularly high-quality federal contracts such as the DHS project, Merrill Smith has become a living example for local small businesses that aim high. In searching for minority and union laborers, Metropolitan Fire Sprinkler is both training and employing a high-quality workforce. I ask the House to join me in honoring the Metropolitan Fire Sprinkler, LLC for its outstanding accomplishments as the 2011 District of Columbia Small Business of the Year, and its founder and president, Walter ``Merrill'' Smith.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in recognizing the 41 District of Columbia elected officials and residents who stood up for the self-governing rights of the American citizens who reside in the nation's capital by sitting down in a peaceful act of civil disobedience on Constitution Avenue in front of the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Monday, April 15, 2011. The rally, organized by DC Vote, protested the final 2011 continuing resolution (CR) which contains two anti-home-rule riders. The CR prohibits the District from spending its local taxpayer-raised funds on abortions for low-income women, even though many state and local jurisdictions have done so for decades. Without consultation with any District of Columbia elected official, the CR also mandates a D.C.- only private school voucher program, while the House Republican majority refuses to bring a bill to the floor that would allow districts that desire this alternative to select it on a home-rule basis. The District of Columbia is almost alone in the nation in establishing a robust alternative to our local public schools, our public charter schools, which educate almost 40 percent of the city's children and have long waiting lists. The House voted to approve these riders while denying voting representation in this body to District of Columbia residents. The D.C. elected officials who engaged in civil disobedience were D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray, Council Chair Kwame Brown, At-Large Council members Sekou Biddle and Michael Brown, Council members Yvette Alexander, Muriel Bowser, and Thomas Wells, and House Shadow Representative Michael Panetta. The District residents were Ann Aldrich, Lafayette Barnes, Peter Bishop, Robert Brannum, Jason Cross, Billie Day, Jack Evans, Marc Ferrara, Corryn Freeman, Mary Gosselink, Lawrence Hams, Karen Hixson, Anise Jenkins, Eugene Kinlow, John Klenert, Rachel Madelham, Adam Maier, George Marion, Jr., Nicholas McCoy, Martin Moulton, Brian Pate, Joseph Perta, Jeffrey Richardson, Deangelo Scott, Deborah Shore, Carly Skidmore, Daniel Solomon, Bruce Spiva, Jay Tamboli, Maceo Thomas, Ryan Velasco, Patricia Vrandenburg, and Ilir Zherka. The city has long advocated its rights through the usual channels and official responses. However, from the day the 112th Congress convened, the House Republican majority has repeatedly introduced bills to violate the rights of our citizens, beginning with the approval of new rules that summarily stripped the District of the only vote on the House floor it has achieved, the House Committee of the Whole vote, approved by the federal courts. The DC 41, as they are called, recognized that the House Republican majority intends to return with more anti-home-rule riders. An additional anti-home-rule rider was included in the original Republican spending bill, H.R. 1, but failed this time to become a part of the final agreement. The message of the DC 41 was that DC elected officials and residents will not walk away from the infringement of their rights to govern themselves and to spend their taxpayer-raised local funds as they choose. I ask the House to join me in saluting the DC 41, who acted in the long American tradition of incurring arrests during peaceful civil disobedience to protect and to further their right to full equality with the residents of the 50 states.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today I introduce the National Patriots Memorial Act. The bill will authorize the establishment of a memorial on federal land in the District of Columbia to honor the patriots of the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, as well as our international allies that fought in support of gaining and then preserving our nation's freedom during these wars. Funding for the memorial will come entirely from private funds. The National Patriots Memorial will be an important addition to the nation and to the District of Columbia alike. The memorial will preserve the history of the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, and celebrate the patriots and allies who fought in them. The National Patriots Memorial also will remind the nation that DC residents fought in the Revolutionary War, the war that created the nation itself, and the War of 1812, just as our residents have served in all of the nation's wars, and are doing so today. The memorial also will serve to educate visitors to the nation's capital about the early years of our country's issues, conflicts, and growth. I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in celebrating the third annual DC Tap Festival, taking place in Washington, DC from April 15-April 17, 2011. I also ask the House to recognize its founders, Chloe and Maud Arnold, both of whom are natives of the District of Columbia, for their contributions to our great city and to the art form, tap dance. The third annual DC Tap Festival will attract over four generations of tap dancers from around the world, and will heighten global respect and appreciation for a rich American art form, tap dance. The mission of the DC Tap Festival is to unite the global tap community, bringing people together from around the world to celebrate dance, while bridging the gap between the hip-hop and jazz generations through the classic, timeless art form of tap dance. The DC Tap Festival is a forum for the creative and artistic processes. We acknowledge the founders, sisters Chloe and Maud Arnold, for their commitment to this city. They have received international acclaim for tap dancing, after studying at two Washington-based dance companies, DC Dance Collective and Duke Ellington School of the Arts, and performing at highly acclaimed D.C. venues such as Dance Place and the Kennedy Center. The Arnold sisters have returned to their hometown, every year for the past three years, to celebrate tap dance and to encourage the next generation of tappers to pursue their dreams. This year, the DC Tap Festival welcomes groups from as far away as Taiwan, and will showcase a fabulous array of tap-dance techniques and styles in a variety of musical genres through workshops, jam sessions, cutting contests, and an all-star concert performance. Chloe and Maud Arnold were fortunate to grow up in D.C. during a time when funding for arts programs was available. They have trained with tap-dance legends such as Harold Nicholas of the Nicholas Brothers, Pegleg Bates, Buster Brown, Gregory Hines, Savion Glover, and with dancer and arts patron extraordinaire Debbie Allen. Both sisters are graduates of Columbia University's Film School, and performers, choreographers, and teachers worldwide. In addition to being an art form, dance can be an aerobic activity that helps to improve heart health, strengthen muscles, increase flexibility, and burn calories. As I work to celebrate dance as an art form and to promote the health benefits of dancing, I will reintroduce a resolution to recognize July 31st as National Dance Day, both in the nation's capital and throughout the United States. On July 31, 2010, with a few thousand District residents and tourists, we gathered on the National Mall to watch, learn from and dance with Fluria Flamenco, Step Afrika, Beat Ya Feet Kings, Capitol Movement Project, DCypher, Banneker Ball Room Dancing Club, and many more. I was joined on the Mall by ``So You Think You Can Dance'' co- creator, executive producer, and judge Nigel Lythgoe, by Dominique Dawes, the U.S. Olympic gymnast and a member of the President's Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition, and by the Dizzy Feet Foundation to promote dance as an avenue for physical fitness and artistic expression. Our country has an adult and childhood overweight and obesity epidemic, and we need to promote physical activity among children and adults, especially dancing, the exercise that many of us most enjoy! I ask the House to join me in celebrating the third annual DC Tap Festival, taking place in Washington, DC from April 15-April 17, 2011, and to recognize Chloe and Maud Arnold's lifetime of passion for tap dancing and hard and productive work and service to the community.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, DC (GLAA), a valued organization that has become a local leader in the struggle for equal rights for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) community. Since its founding in April 1971, GLAA has been a respected and tireless advocate for full and equal rights for the District of Columbia, and has been at the forefront of efforts to strengthen enforcement of the landmark D.C. Human Rights Act of 1977. One of GLAA's most significant achievements, on which it worked with coalition partners, D.C. elected officials, and District residents, was the enactment of the District of Columbia Religious Freedom and Civil Rights Equality Amendment, which permits same-sex couples to marry in the District of Columbia. In addition to its leadership on GLBT rights in the District, GLAA has always provided leadership on a wide range of civil rights issues, such as family rights, police accountability, and access to condoms in prisons and D.C. public schools. GLAA also emphasizes effective public health strategies and accountability in the fight against HIV/AIDS in the District. At GLAA's 40th anniversary reception on April 20, 2011, the recipients of its 2011 Distinguished Service Awards will be recognized, including The Right Reverend John Bryson Chane, an Episcopal Bishop of Washington since 2002, a leader on issues of faith, politics and religion, an advocate for seniors, homeless and GLBT citizens, and a leader on interfaith dialogue and study; Sharon Farmer, a native of the District of Columbia and the first African American and woman to serve as Director of White House Photography, where she shot news stories, political campaigns, cultural events, conferences and portraits, including of President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton; David Friedman, Director of the D.C. Regional Office of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, a co-founder of the Bias Crimes Task Force, and a longstanding ally of the GLBT community who advocates for victims of hate crimes and legislation to address bullying and harassment of GLBT students in D.C. public schools; Theodore ``Teddy'' Guerrant, the longest serving accompanist in the gay and lesbian choral movement, including with the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington, DC since 1983, an accompanist for the Central Maryland Chorale for eleven years, a member of the National Philharmonic Chorale at Strathmore Music Center for twenty-nine years, and an Organist-Choirmaster at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Washington, DC for thirteen years; Ronald King, a longtime public servant in the District of Columbia who served as a Director of Prevention and Intervention Services for the HIV/AIDS Administration, a Government Co-Chair of the D.C. HIV Prevention Community Planning Group, a manager of the first Centers for Disease Control & Prevention-funded outreach program in the District of Columbia for Black and Latino sexual minorities and of several HIV/AIDS programs, and co-founder of the DC Needle Exchange Coalition and the award-winning AIDS Program of the National Basketball Players Association; and David C. Ward, co-curator, with Jonathan Katz, of the National Portrait Gallery's landmark ``Hide/Seek'' exhibition who defended the integrity of the show in the face of censorship and controversy, an author, poet, and literary critic, as well as an historian at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery. I ask the House to join me in honoring the recipients of GLAA's 2011 Distinguished Service Award and celebrating GLAA's 40th anniversary of contributions to the GLBT community in the District of Columbia.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. I appreciate the gentleman yielding. The majority will allow a vote of every other Member on what affects only my district. No wonder the D.C. mayor, the council and residents have taken to civil disobedience.

Ms. NORTON. I thank the gentleman from Colorado for yielding to me and for his work on this bill. Madam Speaker, the District of Columbia has no vote on the rule or the bill under consideration. Yet the only controversial attachments in this bill involve only the District of Columbia. The bill is remarkably clean. Only four out of 50 or so attachments survived: one on gray wolves, one on Guantanamo prisoners, and, yes, there is the District of Columbia. These two, the only controversial amendments, violate the District's most basic right to self-government. One has to do with private school vouchers--only for the District of Columbia. A bill we didn't ask for, a bill we weren't consulted about, and a bill we don't want. The Rules Committee refused to recognize my amendment, which would redirect the private school voucher money to the D.C. public schools and to our own public charter schools--40 percent of our children go to this alternative and our charter schools have long waiting lists--to our choice, not the Republicans' choice. My second amendment would strike a second rider that keeps the District from spending our own local taxpayer-raised funds on reproductive choice for our low-income women. Local money, local choice. The majority proposed to close down the District government last week rather than pass my amendment to allow D.C. to spend its own local funds. Now the majority wants a closed rule for a bill with attachments that profoundly affect only the District of Columbia. I will have no vote on this floor on the Rule or on any part of this bill.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, the 1963 Equal Pay Act (EPA), the first of the great civil rights statutes of the 1960s, was successful for close to 20 years, but it is too creaky with age to be useful today. It is long past time to amend the EPA to reflect the new workforce in which women work almost as much as men. Every year, Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and I, along with scores of other Members of Congress, introduce the Paycheck Fairness Act, to amend the EPA to make its basic procedures equal to those used in other anti-discrimination statutes. I was an original co-sponsor of, and attended the signing ceremony at the White House for, the 2009 Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which further strengthens the EPA by restoring its original interpretation. However, the Fair Pay Act of 2011 (FPA), which Senator Tom Harkin and I have introduced in prior sessions of Congress, picks up where the EPA and the Ledbetter Act leave off, by taking on workplace gender discrimination in which gender-influenced wages leave the average female worker without any remedy. I have long pressed for passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act and the FPA, based on my own experience as the first female chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), when President Jimmy Carter moved the EPA and other civil rights statutes under the EEOC' s jurisdiction, as part of a historic reorganization. Along with my indispensable Senate partner, Tom Harkin, I again introduce the FPA on behalf of the average female worker, who is often first steered to, and then locked into, jobs with wages that are deeply influenced by the gender of those who have traditionally held such jobs. Much of the wage inequality women experience today is because of employer-steering and because of deeply rooted wage stereotypes, which result in wages being paid by gender and not according to the skills and efforts necessary to do the job. I introduce the FPA because the pay problems today of most women stem mainly from the segregating of women and men in different jobs. Two-thirds of white women and three quarters of African-American women work in just three areas: sales/clerical, service, and factories. We need more aggressive strategies to break through the societal habits present throughout history, the world over, as well as employer- steering of jobs based on gender, which is as old as paid employment itself. The FPA requires that, if men and women are doing comparable work, they be paid comparable wages. If a woman is an emergency services operator, for example, a female-dominated profession, she should be paid no less than a fire dispatcher, a male-dominated profession, simply because each of these jobs has been dominated by one sex. If a woman is a social worker, a traditionally female occupation, she should earn no less than a probation officer, a traditionally male job, simply because of the gender associated with each of these jobs. The FPA, like the EPA, will not tamper with the market system. As with the EPA, the burden will be on the plaintiff to prove discrimination. The plaintiff must show that the reason for the disparate treatment is gender discrimination, not legitimate market factors. Corrections to achieve comparable pay for men and women are not radical or unprecedented. State employees in almost half of the state governments, in red and blue states alike, have already demonstrated that you can eliminate the part of the pay gap that is due to discrimination. Twenty states have adjusted wages for female state employees, raising pay for teachers, nurses, clerical workers, librarians, and other female-dominated jobs that paid less than men with comparable jobs. Minnesota, for example, implemented a pay equity plan when they found that similarly skilled female jobs paid 20 percent less than male jobs. There may be some portion of a gender wage gap that is traceable to market conditions, but twenty states have shown that you can tackle the gender discrimination-based gap without interfering with the market system. The states generally have closed the discrimination gap over a period of four or five years at a one- time cost of no more than three to four percent of payroll. In addition, many female workers routinely achieve pay equity through collective bargaining, and countless employers provide it on their own as they see women shifting out of vital female-dominated occupations, as a result of the shortage of skilled workers, as well as the unfairness to women. Unequal pay has been built into the way women have been treated since Adam and Eve. To dislodge such deep-seated and pervasive treatment, we must go to the source, the traditional female occupations, where pay is linked with gender and always has been. The best case for a strong and updated EPA, with at least the Paycheck Fairness Act, occurred here in the Congress in 2003, when female custodians in the House and Senate won an EPA case after showing that female workers were paid a dollar less for doing the same or similar work as men. Had these women not been represented by their union, they would have had an almost impossible task of using the rules for bringing and sustaining an EPA class action suit. The FPA simply modernizes the EPA to bring it in line with subsequent civil rights statutes. From my tenure as EEOC chair, I know all too well the several ways that this historic legislation needs a 21st century makeover. Let us start with the Paycheck Fairness Act so we can be prepared to go further with the FPA we introduce today. Let us start now to make the pay worthy of the American women we have asked to go to work.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor today to celebrate the 41 District of Columbia elected officials and residents led by Mayor Vincent Gray and five members of the D.C. City Council who were arrested in front of the Hart Senate office building yesterday evening, and hundreds of other residents who gathered to protest their second- class treatment as American citizens by the Republican House, the Democratic-led Senate, and the administration. The 2011 continuing resolution due on the floor this week contains a sinister trade that takes the District of Columbia's self-governing rights to spend its own local funds on abortion services for poor women, as many jurisdictions have long done. The CR also funds the start-up of a new, private school voucher program but only in D.C., about which no local elected official was consulted. It is the House Republicans who have been on an undemocratic warpath against the District's home rule. But yesterday, residents did not spare Senate Democrats or the President who, in the end, accepted Republican demands. The House will hear from me again as I try to remove these anti-home rule riders; but this body has repeatedly turned a deaf ear to me on violations of the city's most basic rights to local control. Congress continually and summarily refused my bill and several amendments to allow the District to spend its own local funds to avoid a shutdown of the city government that would have occurred with a Federal shutdown, even though only our local funds were involved. Yesterday, however, Congress and the country heard from the people themselves. House rules do not allow Members to organize demonstrations, and yesterday's spontaneous outpouring of citizens, where I was not present, showed why the people must always speak for themselves. D.C. Vote organized yesterday's mammoth demonstration in a couple of days; and residents poured onto Constitution Avenue, anxious for an outlet for their accumulated outrage at being traded on a congressional auction block. Yesterday, the House, the Senate, and the administration heard the voices and saw the faces of our city. The House may disagree with the views of our American citizens on women's constitutional reproductive rights, but no American would sanction congressional mandates on how our local citizens may spend the local taxes they raise. The Speaker may favor private school vouchers, but no American would agree that his preference should override a city's local decision for public charter schools as the alternative to our private schools. The House may continue to ignore me; but yesterday D.C. elected officials and residents, like millions of others throughout the world, showed that the people will not be ignored forever. I will offer a separate statement including the names of the residents and officials who were arrested, with gratitude.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. How much more contempt can you show for the citizens who live in the Nation's Capital? If the Republicans are going to require Members to cite the Constitution in introducing legislation, I ask them to stop tearing up the Constitution and throwing it in the faces of the American citizens who live in the Nation's Capital.

Ms. NORTON. I thank the gentleman for his efforts. I'm here to say to my good friends on the other side, it's one thing to beat up on the District of Columbia; it's another thing to drop a bomb on the city. And that's what this CR does. It takes the route of authoritarian governments and dictatorships by dictating to a local government how it may spend its local funds. And it may force the District of Columbia government to shut down, even though the District government had a balanced budget, passed it last spring and had it approved by the committees in this House and Senate since last summer. But because the Congress can't figure out how to pass its own budget, it now threatens to close down the District of Columbia government, which doesn't have a dime in this federal budget, only local funds. My amendment could have avoided all this by allowing local funds to continue to be spent by the District of Columbia. The other side has been engaged in many attacks on the city's right to self-government, from stripping our vote in the Committee of the Whole, approved by two Federal courts, to three riders in their H.R. 1. But the ultimate attack on a local self-government is Federal usurpation, a virtual taking of our local funds by not allowing the city to use its own money to keep its own local government running. Worse, there is an attempt to use the District of Columbia as a bargaining chip in these negotiations. There have been no riders in prior continuing resolutions. Shamefully, here the District of Columbia is paired with a rider that no prisoners can be brought into the United States with another that says D.C.'s local funds shall be captured by keeping the city from spending its own local funds on abortion.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I have come to the floor because in a very real sense I feel surrounded. Mr. Speaker, I was sent to Congress, like every other Member, to attend to the business of the Nation. But in fact, I have been surrounded. I have been surrounded by the new House majority that has decided to spend huge amounts of time, in the most autocratic fashion, trying to deprive the District of Columbia of its self-governing rights. Mr. Speaker, Congress delegated home rule to the District of Columbia in 1973. Before that time, the District of Columbia had no mayor, city council, was ruled by the federal government without any democracy. That was mostly the work of Southern Democrats, whose reasons were, among others, but most definitely, racial. What is happening today is not the work of Southern Democrats. It is the work of the new Republican majority. I am pulled off the Nation's business day after day after day because of yet another zinger from Republicans to intrude into the local affairs and local spending of the District of Columbia. I had to call the administration and Majority Leader Reid today, cautioning them that the District must not be used as a bargaining chip in the present battle over Federal spending underway here. The latest intrusion is hard to bear. The District has decided to spend its local funds, among other things, on abortions for poor women. Dozens upon dozens of jurisdictions do that. No Federal funds. Funds raised by the taxpayers of the District of Columbia. What does that have to do with the Federal budget? What does that have to do with overspending or a deficit here? That has to do with somebody's, some majority's, ideological obsession with placing their autocratic desires on a jurisdiction that did not elect them, cannot put them out. It's the very definition of an autocracy. So they pick on the jurisdiction that has no Senators and throw us into the pot because the far right social conservatives here want something in this CR. So give them the District of Columbia. You can't have us. Who do you think you are? The residents of the District of Columbia are free and equal citizens. We will not be traded off like we were slaves or a colony that can be thrown in by those who don't care. We care. So whether it is the other body, or this body, or for that matter the President of the United States, get your hands off the local funds of the District of Columbia. You didn't raise a penny of it. We will spend it the way we please. And especially in this battle, which has to do with your deficit spending. D.C. has a budget that is balanced. Why should that budget be over here in the first place? Our budget was approved last year. It came here and was approved by the House and the Senate before the lame duck. Yet last year's D.C. budget is still here, and we are now sitting on the possibility that when the Federal Government, which now looks like it's stupid enough to close down because the Republicans won't take the best deal anybody has had in the history of this body for what they wanted, that may shut down. And the American people will be shocked to know that would mean that the local government of the District of Columbia, which is not in this fight, will be shut down too. This has gone much too far. It's one thing to start the session with your first act being to strip the District of Columbia of its vote in the Committee of the Whole, although two courts have said that that vote is constitutional. Then to move on to intrusion after intrusion, reinsert riders that we just got out, riders that have nothing to do with any Member of this body except me, who represents the citizens of the District of Columbia, a rider that would increase HIV/AIDS in D.C., the District of Columbia, by keeping the city from using its own funds to fund needle exchange. Again, dozens upon dozens of jurisdictions have driven down their AIDS rate this way. We have the highest AIDS rate in the United States only because the Congress of the United States has killed--I use these words advisedly--killed men, women and children in the District of Columbia by keeping the District for 10 years from using needle exchange, so that AIDS spread throughout the city. So we have a higher AIDS rate than Baltimore--poorer city--than New York, than Detroit, than Los Angeles because of the wishes of the Congress of the United States which is responsive to nobody in the District of Columbia. They move to abortion. And if it wasn't enough to keep us from using our own local funds in this budget, as they still hope to do, they have put us in H.R. 3. H.R. 3 is a bill, and instead of a rider which lasts 1 year, they would permanently keep the District from spending its own funds on abortions for women. This is the majority that does not even want the Federal Government in Federal matters. What in the world are they doing in the matters of the local jurisdiction? What kind of tea party Republicans are these who have just added to the deficit by voting $300 million for private schools in the District of Columbia, adding to the deficit and not paying for it? How do you explain that back home? We didn't ask for these vouchers. Nobody even consulted with public officials in the District of Columbia before they put that voucher bill on the floor last week. That's the kind of contempt this majority has for the residents of the District of Columbia. We are going to fight back each and every time, and we are going to say to this administration and to the Senate: Don't give in. Don't give us away because they want a chit and they have decided that chit is the District of Columbia. I went to the Rules Committee from the very beginning when a shutdown looked like it was going to occur. I said, look, this is our money. We are not in this fight. We all agree on that. This is about Federal spending, the Federal deficit, not a deficit from the District of Columbia. Let us have a provision here that says the District can spend its own local money for the rest of the year. I don't think that there is a single American citizen that would have said that we shouldn't be able to spend our own local money for the rest of this year. The Rules Committee turned a deaf ear. And so we have had a threat of shutdown after shutdown. And the only reason the District of Columbia is open is because the Federal Government hasn't shut down. Now it looks like these people are going to shut it down anyway because the tea party Republicans have tied the hands of the Speaker behind his very back and taken him prisoner. Well, look, don't take us prisoner with him. We don't have anything to do with that fight. Imagine what it would mean to shut down a big city in America, and especially since that big city is the Nation's capital. Imagine what we look like to the world that we even shut down the Nation's capital when the Federal Government was shut down. Don't do it. Don't shut the Federal Government down. Speaker Boehner, himself, said that it would cost the government more to shut it down than to keep it open. But if you do shut it down, for goodness sake, keep the District of Columbia open. That's what Speaker Gingrich did when the Federal Government shut down. He kept the District of Columbia open after the first time--because it shut down several times--because he recognized you can't do that to a big city, a very complex mechanism. You simply can't shut it down and expect that it can keep on moving. It's a terrible thing to have H.R. 3 on the floor in the first place. That would strip women of a vital portion of their reproductive rights, but it would also go after the insurers to make it almost impossible for a woman to get comprehensive insurance, because the insurer would almost surely have to exclude abortion. What kind of a place is this? I thought that the new majority came to town on a bandwagon that said let's create jobs. Where is the jobs bill? Why the obsession with a local jurisdiction that has nothing to do with jobs or even with the cutting of spending that you have been so successful in getting? It's your battle, not ours. To pull us into your battle is tantamount to what bullies do in the schoolyard. Somebody is watching the fight or is passing by, they just get pulled into the fight. We are not even onlookers. We simply are not in it. It's as if Republicans had a meeting: How many things that we haven't done can we do to the District of Columbia, and how many things that we have done can we do? Well, they have introduced a gun bill. The courts have already found the new gun law the District passed constitutional. They have introduced a new one that, among other things, would say that you could carry guns in the streets of the Nation's capital and conceal them as well. How would you like 20 million visitors to see people walking around with guns that you can see, and what do you think that means for the many official delegations who frequent the streets of the District of Columbia? You know, there have been so many things that the Republicans have thought of to do, I need to sit down and consider: Is there anything they haven't thought of to do? One thing that occurs to me to show you how deep is their contempt for democracy in the District of Columbia, when they put the District of Columbia in their bill that goes after women and insurers nationwide, they tucked us in there, too, to make sure we could never spend local money for abortions for poor women. I mentioned that earlier. So, of course, as you might imagine, since mine was the only district named in the bill that I would ask to testify--denied. Excuse given? Well, the Democrats already had their witness. I wasn't a witness for the Democrats against the bill. I asked for common courtesy, the right to be heard on a section of the bill that involved my District. Somebody else needed to speak for the Democrats as the minority witness on the bill itself. If they look for every attempt, every occasion to deny us democracy, they also look for every occasion to deny the Member who represents this city the rights that I am due simply as a courtesy as a colleague. Nothing is more precious to Americans than the right to be able to spend their local funds the way they want to. I thought that the new tea party House Republicans would be the first to understand that. Remember what we are talking about. We are talking about local funds of a local jurisdiction. Time and again, the Republicans use the fact that our budget comes here in order to attach, in the most undemocratic fashion, matters that are their pet projects. Vouchers is an example of a pet project of the Speaker, so that gets priority in coming to the floor. The District is the only jurisdiction that has ever had federally funded private vouchers. There was wholesale resentment and demonstrations against that when it was first put on our city. Ultimately, we made some compromises. We let the law go 2 years past its expiration date. The Obama administration said anybody who is still in private school can remain until they graduate. You can never compromise enough with the House Republicans. Now they want it all over again. They want to restart it. I particularly resent the voucher bill because the District of Columbia is one of the only jurisdictions that has allowed public charter schools, separate from our public schools, to flourish. Almost half of our children are educated in these independent, publicly accountable charter schools. You go to the jurisdiction of virtually every Member of this House, you will find that their local school board or their State school authorities have kept charters out and kept them growing. We let them in as a home rule matter, and they flourished. I have appointed students from the charter schools for service academies. We've got terrific charter schools. We've got a Latin charter school. We've got eight KIPP charter schools. Those are the top of the mark of public schools. I don't know what we can do. We're the last to claim that our public schools are what they should be. In fact, our public schools have improved because of competition from the charter schools. That's the kind of competition you want because the charter schools and the public schools are competing for the same dollar. The private schools are funded out of a separate pot. Now, a budget resolution comes out today, and it would trade off perhaps the most valuable education program the city has ever had for this voucher program which is unpaid for and should never pass the House. So they want it in next year's bill, and this is how they do it. They take D.C. TAG, which Congress in the most bipartisan fashion passed because the District of Columbia does not have a State university system where you can go to any one of usually dozens of colleges. So it funds youngsters to go to other States. It has doubled college attendance in the District of Columbia. In order to get a decent job in the District of Columbia, because we are the upscale Nation's Capital, you need some college. And yet what the budget resolution does is trade off the few for the many. He would make the program means tested. That defeats the whole point. By sending our students to the public colleges of other States, we are trying to replicate what is available as a right in the States regardless of income. So if you are rich or poor, if you live in Maryland, Virginia, Ohio or California, you go to the State university. If it were means tested, of course, it would mean that many, many of the students could not go. After all, they've got to go out of the District of Columbia simply to take advantage of the program in the first place, and it pays only for tuition. They have to pay for their room and board and for their food. If they had to, if it is means tested, then, of course, what you are doing is killing the program. Somebody had to sit down and think that one up. And they thought it up as a way to pay for vouchers we never asked for, neither I nor any other public official in the District of Columbia was consulted about. We are tired of it. We are depending on the Senate to be a bulwark against madness because that's what we have here. We see it in the move to shut down the government. No, they don't want to shut down the government, but they don't have control of their own people. There's no discipline on the other side of the aisle. There's no democracy there. They let a few Members who are the most extreme slice of America decide what their whole caucus will do. We simply will not be hostages to the new House majority. If you can't get what you want on the floor when you control it, don't put it on the District of Columbia. You should be able, because of your majority, to do what you want to do. We are not the repository for every pet idea that you otherwise dare not put on the House floor. And that is what we have become. We had hoped that the new majority would focus on the Nation's business, what it said it wanted to do. It has focused on the deficit as the Nation's business, although it's taking food out of the mouths of children in the process. But at least that's a focus on national business. The average American would ask those who voted to increase the deficit by $300 million last week for private schools in the District of Columbia, why in the world did you do that? Why did you want to give them this? I will tell you why. It was the pet idea of the Speaker, and they don't dare put a national voucher bill on the floor. The way to do it, you wouldn't have to coerce anybody. You would say, we have vouchers available nationally. Let's have competitive grants. Anyone who wants vouchers can have them. You compete for them. That's how we do things in the Federal Government. Why didn't they do that? They didn't do that because there's been referendum after referendum in the states, and not one private school voucher referendum has been won by private school voucher proponents. You go home and you tell any American that you are spending Federal money for private schools now, you will get your head handed to you. That's how it was when these referenda ran their course. Imagine now when the Republicans are cutting billions of dollars from every public school district in the United States, imagine how it looks when they are spending money for private school vouchers on a district that never asked for it and doesn't want it because it's somebody's pet project. Take your pet projects and you know what you can do with them. Do that with them; don't do it here in the District of Columbia. We ask the majority to stop your obsession with one jurisdiction, the District of Columbia. We ask you if you shut down the Federal Government, for goodness' sake, don't shut down one of America's big cities and a city on which you depend greatly. Many of you live here. Many of the services for the Federal Government are taken care of by the District of Columbia. This is not something you want to do to the Nation's Capital. It makes us look idiotic to the world at large. For myself, I want to go back to doing the Nation's business. I don't want to be taken off of that business every other day because some Republican or the Republican majority has decided to do something undemocratic to the district I represent. I put forward an amendment that would get rid of the issue of who gets shut down when the Federal Government gets shut down once and for all. It simply says, look, when the Federal Government shuts down, if the District of Columbia budget is over here and it has gone through the process, the District of Columbia can spend its own local funds. Remember, the budget that comes over here was raised in the District of Columbia and should not be over here in the first place. I had a budget autonomy bill last session that until the very last moment was going to get through this House and the Senate. It is the very essence of no democracy that somebody's own taxes that they raise in their own local jurisdiction would be subject to somebody else who didn't have anything to do with raising a cent of those taxes. That is what happens to the District of Columbia. When the District of Columbia's budget comes here, they don't dare change anything in the complicated local budget of the District of Columbia. That is very complicated. You could throw everything out of kilter. So essentially they don't bother with the budget. They spend all of their time seeing what they can attach to the budget, substantive legislation that has no place in an appropriation in the first place and has no place in somebody else's budget above all. Mr. Speaker, part of the problem may be that some Members either do not know because they are new or have forgotten, either because for 4 years of Democratic control these issues didn't come up, or because they want to forget. I come to the floor this afternoon to assure you I shall not let you forget, we will make sure that in your home districts, they know that you are attending not to the business of that district but to the business of the District of Columbia and that you are doing so in the most undemocratic and autocratic fashion. You who quote the Constitution ought to sit down and think for a moment what the Framers would have done had they seen the Federal Government, which they were afraid of, intervene into the local affairs of any district. I ask you: hands off, lay off the District of Columbia.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. I submit the following letters: Council of the District of Columbia, Washington, DC, March 30, 2011. Senator Harry Reid, Majority Leader, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC. Dear Senator Reid: We write to express our opposition to renewed efforts to expand a federally-funded school voucher program in the District of Columbia. We appreciate your interest in providing support to public education in the District. We strongly believe, however, that federal funds should be invested in the existing public education program-- both the public schools and the public charter schools-- rather than diverted to private schools. We support the decision by Congress and the President several years ago to phase out the voucher program. Multiple US Department of Education reports of the program indicate that the program has not lived up to the promises made by proponents. Moreover, a Government Accountability Office report revealed that many of the voucher students attend private schools with fewer resources and lower standards than our public schools. The evidence is clear that the use of vouchers has had no statistically significant impact on overall student achievement in math or reading, or for students from schools in need of improvement. We have serious concerns about using government funds to send our students to private schools that do not have to adhere to the same standards and accountability as do public and public charter schools. For example, private religious schools, which 80% of voucher students attend, operate outside the anti-discrimination provisions of the District's Human Rights Act. Moreover, the voucher proposal is inequitable: if fully funded, the authorization would provide at least $8,000 per student for vouchers, but only about $723 per public charter school student, and even less--about $437 per public school student. Although we believe that students who are already receiving a voucher should have the opportunity to maintain and use that voucher through graduation from high school, we do not support expansion of the program to new students. The District has devoted considerable funds to public education. As a result, parents in the District have both public school choice and access to the most extensive set of alternatives to traditional public schools in the country. We appreciate your willingness to take into account the wishes of the District's elected officials on the quintessentially local matter of education as you consider this issue. Sincerely, Michael A. Brown, Councilmember, At-Large. Mary M. Cheh, Councilmember, Ward 3. Jim Graham, Councilmember, Ward 1. Phil Mendelson, Councilmember, At-Large. Tommy Wells, Councilmember, Ward 6.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today, I am introducing the Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act of 2011, a version of which I have introduced since 1994, after working with the District of Columbia residents who were responsible for the Nuclear Disarmament and Economic Conversion ballot initiative passed by DC voters in 1993. This version of the bill now requires the United States to negotiate an international agreement to disable and dismantle its nuclear weapons by 2020 and provides for strict control of fissile material and radioactive waste and for use of nuclear free energy resources. The bill continues to provide that the funds used for nuclear weapons programs be redirected towards human and infrastructure needs, such as housing, health care, Social Security and the environment. The bill is particularly timely as Congress continues to make cuts to important human and infrastructure programs and as the world confronts nuclear catastrophe in Japan. This year, I introduce the bill to recognize the Alliance of Nuclear Accountability's DC Days 2011, beginning on Monday, and in memory of William Thomas, who died in 2009 after demonstrating in front of the White House in an anti-nuclear vigil for nearly 28 years. His efforts were the longest uninterrupted anti-war protest in U.S. history. William Thomas made the cause of peace the centerpiece of his meaningful life and was an example for us all. Following years of dangerous increases in U.S. nuclear capacity during the George W. Bush administration, President Barack Obama has begun to rebuild U.S. credibility with his goal of taking the necessary steps to achieve a world without nuclear weapons. The President's strong push for the New START treaty last year, when Republicans seemed adamant on stalling it, resulted in ratification by the Senate. The treaty requires the two major nuclear powers, Russia and the United States, continue to reduce nuclear weapons by mutually reducing their nuclear warheads by half and their number of intercontinental ballistic missiles and missile launchers, and, within sixty days of the treaty's entry into force, on February 5, 2011, submit to on-site inspections of strategic nuclear weapons facilities by the weapons experts of the other country. Despite the progress embodied by the New START treaty, the events of the last few weeks remind us of the urgent need to rid the world of nuclear weapons. The tragic nuclear catastrophe in Japan, a result of a massive earthquake and tsunami, demonstrates another, perhaps even more likely, nuclear peril. Radiation has been detected around the world since the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown. It is painfully ironic that the one country that has been attacked with nuclear weapons is now struggling to control its own nuclear capability after the plant meltdown. The U.S. has an obligation to lead in ridding the world of nuclear weapons. Today, our country has a long list of urgent domestic needs that have been put on the back burner even though millions of Americans have lost their homes and jobs. As the only nation that has used nuclear weapons in war, and that still possesses the largest nuclear weapons arsenal, I urge support for my bill to help the United States lead the world in redirecting funds that would otherwise go to nuclear weapons to instead be available for urgent domestic needs.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I introduce the District of Columbia Medicaid Reimbursement Act of 2011 today to increase the Federal Government's reimbursement for a portion of the District of Columbia's Medicaid costs because the District is the only city, except for New York City, that pays any portion of Medicaid, an expense that is carried by the Federal Government and States. New York City, the jurisdiction that powers the economy of New York State, contributes a 25 percent share for Medicaid costs, while the state pays 25 percent, less than the District's federally mandated 30 percent contribution. The District's continuing responsibility for the share of Medicaid costs that are borne by entire states is a major component of the District's structural deficit and a threat to the financial stability of the city itself, according to the District's chief financial officer. Today, considering high unemployment in the District and the expansion of Medicaid eligibility under the new health care reform law, effective 2014, now is the time to make the District's Medicaid burden more equitable. Under the National Capital Revitalization and Self-Government Improvement Act of 1997 (Revitalization Act), Congress recognized that state costs are too high for any city to shoulder. To address this unfairness in the District, the Revitalization Act transferred certain state responsibilities from the District to the Federal Government, including prisons and courts, and the Act increased the Federal Medicaid reimbursement to the District from 50 to 70 percent, partially relieving this burden. The city continues to carry many state costs, however. In 1997, a formula error in the Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital allotment reduced the 70 percent Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) share, and as a result, the District received only $23 million instead of the $49 million it was due. I was able to secure a technical correction in the Balanced Budget Act of 1999, partially increasing the annual allotment to $32 million from fiscal year 2000 forward. I appreciate that in 2005, Congress responded to my effort to get an additional annual increase of $20 million in the budget reconciliation bill, bringing D.C.'s Medicaid reimbursements to $57 million as intended by the Revitalization Act. However, this amount did not reimburse the District for the years the federal error denied the city part of its federal contribution, and in any case, of course, was not intended to eliminate the District's structural deficit, which this bill partially addresses. The bill is the eighth in my ``Free and Equal D.C.'' series. The series of bills addresses inappropriate and often unequal restrictions placed only on the District and no other U.S. jurisdiction. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the bill.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. I appreciate my friend yielding me 2 minutes. I did not get an opportunity to speak on the last amendment. Although I'm from the region, I did want to reinforce why the compromise fashioned by the chairman and the ranking member is so important. Whenever this bill comes up, there is some individual, usually from the other body, who wants to expand the perimeter. Dulles and Reagan are essentially airports under congressional control, and Congress has mandated a balance between Reagan and Dulles, and has allocated finances accordingly. Reagan is a short-distance airport. Dulles is the long-distance airport. Reagan has one primary runway. There were stories in the paper just recently about how hard it is, therefore, for planes to land there. Dulles has four times as many. The underuse of Dulles would, in fact, waste substantial investment that the Congress has put into this balance. The compromise language does at least import competition; whereas, the original amendment would have been a windfall to one or two airlines. So I very much appreciate this compromise. Remember, those of us in the region would prefer nothing outside of the perimeter, but we're always willing to work with the chairman and with others on the committee, and I am grateful for the compromise that has been accepted, and I'm very grateful that the gentleman from Arizona has been kind enough to withdraw his amendment.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland for his terrific help on all we have done on this bill. Let me count the ways I strongly oppose H.R. 471: Because it reestablished a program that failed to improve academic achievement as measured by standardized reading and math tests; Because it infringes on the local government's right to make decisions about quintessentially local education matters; Because it was introduced without so much as consultation with any elected official from the affected jurisdiction, the jurisdiction I represent; Because it provides Federal funds to send students to religious and other private schools, despite the absence of support for vouchers, as demonstrated by the failure of every State referendum to authorize vouchers, including two in California; and Because it increases the deficit by $300 million, violating the majority's own CutGo for discretionary authorization legislative protocols. Although I am a proud graduate of the D.C. Public Schools and strongly support our public schools, especially given their great improvement, I have always supported public charter alternatives for those parents who are dissatisfied with our traditional public schools. Children can't wait until public schools now in the throes of ``a race to the top'' meet the top. I'm proud that the District of Columbia has the largest charter school system in the United States of America, with almost half of our children attending. Parents and organizations in the District of Columbia have made this alternative, not the Congress of the United States. The existence and the phenomenal growth of our public charter schools has fueled the competition that has actually helped our public schools improve. The reason is because the charter schools and the public schools, unlike the voucher schools, are competing for the same local dollars. So, today, it is interesting to note that the National Assessment of Educational Progress found that the D.C. Public Schools have awakened to the competition, and now is the only one of 18 large urban school systems that showed improvement in the fourth and eighth-grade achievement tests over the past 2 years. Now, contrast this with what the Bush Education Department found for the very voucher program we will be voting on in H.R. 471, and I'm quoting: The Department of education found ``no conclusive evidence that the Opportunity Scholarship Program affected student achievement'' as measured by standardized reading and math tests. Yet the program was established precisely to measure and improve performance of the lowest achieving students in our schools. D.C. charter schools, however, outperform the D.C. public schools and greatly outperform the voucher schools. Our public charter schools at the middle and high school level, with a majority of economically disadvantaged students, scored almost twice as high as their D.C. Public School counterparts in math and reading, and the graduation rate of charter school students is 24 percent higher than the graduation rate of our traditional public high schools and 8 percent higher than the national average. Yet these public charter schools have a higher percentage of African American students and of disadvantaged students than our public schools. They are entirely accountable. They can be closed and, like public schools, they have been closed. With this remarkable record, why in the world would anyone pick the District of Columbia to impose a voucher program on, or target the only big school system that has set up an alternative public charter school system? If the majority were truly interested in our education agenda, instead of their own, they would do what former Speaker Newt Gingrich did. When he approached me about private school vouchers, I told him of public opposition to vouchers in the city, but not to charter schools, as demonstrated by a fledgling charter school program in the District that had attracted few charters. And there was a District of Columbia charter school law. He worked with me, not against me, to introduce a bill----