D.C. Voting Rights

Floor Speech

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Mr. SERRANO. I thank you for the time, and I congratulate you for continuing to be the Representative that you are for the District of Columbia.

Let me, in the short time that I have, be very brief and to the point. This may be one of the least-known issues in the United States, the whole issue of how Congress treats the District of Columbia. It is understood that there are constitutional provisions, but constitutional provisions for Congress to oversee the District of Columbia do not mean that you should mistreat the District of Columbia.

And I think it's important to note something that happened when I became chairman of the subcommittee that oversees the District of Columbia, and that is that I took it very personal. For you see, like so many New Yorkers, I was not born in New York. I was born in Puerto Rico and I was raised in New York, and I represent the Bronx in Congress. Puerto Rico, as everyone should know, is a territory of the United States; some would say a colony of the United States. So the one thing I didn't want to do was be chairman of this committee and treat Washington, D.C., the way the Federal Government sometimes has treated my birthplace.

Where I found myself, as so many other folks, was with the United States as this country you love and then Puerto Rico as your loving birthplace, knowing they are attached, but somehow Puerto Rico doesn't get treated equally. So I said publicly, to the amazement of some and to the laughter of others, that I was going to be the first Member of Congress to ever relinquish power. I didn't want more power. I wanted to give up power. I wanted less and less to do with the District of Columbia. Let them govern themselves.

And so the first thing we did is we found out that we were not allowing the District of Columbia to have a sensible approach to the HIV/AIDS issue epidemic by not allowing a syringe exchange program. Now, it's important to note what we're talking about here. You have moneys that are raised locally by Washington, D.C., and then you have Federal dollars. And what happened was that Congress, for years, was saying that you can't use Federal dollars for certain programs, and you can't use local dollars either for certain programs. Now, this is the part that gets a little political, and I am going to try to be as fair and as balanced as possible, to quote somebody else.

I believe that some Members of Congress who did not wish to discuss these issues back home or could not fight these issues back home used the District of Columbia as the experiment by which they could say, ``Abortion, I'm against abortion.''

"Where?''

"In the District of Columbia.''

"Needle exchange.''

"Oh, I don't accept that.''

"Where?''

"In the District of Columbia.''

"Same-sex marriage?''

"Oh, I'm totally against that.''

"Where?''

"In the District of Columbia.''

And they couldn't go back home and accomplish these things in their districts, but they imposed it on the District of Columbia.

My role, I felt--and I did accomplish it, but unfortunately that may change soon--was that little by little I got bipartisan support from both parties to remove, under your leadership--and I'm being honest about that because you pushed, and you pushed and you pushed under your leadership--to remove these riders, to let them decide what to do with the HIV crisis, to let Washington, D.C.-elected council members and Mayor decide what to do with so many issues. That's all we did. We still kept the constitutional provisions. I don't go around rewriting the Constitution.

Now what I think will happen--and we begin to see--is a desire to once again use Washington, D.C. as the experiment or the place where you do these things that you can't do back home.

So I would say to my colleagues, if you're strong--and I respect you on the issue of school vouchers. If you are strong on the issue of not letting women make choices in their lives, if you're strong on the issues of what rights or lack of rights gays should have, if you're strong on all of these issues, fight them at the national level, fight them back home. Don't single out the District of Columbia as this experimental ground by which you can say that you accomplished these things when, in fact, you did not.

The last one we had is the one that the public would really understand. The last one, which got lost in this budget that we just did, is the one that simply said that they could approve their own local budget without having Congress say "yes'' or "no.''

Now, picture throughout this country--there are people watching us right now throughout this country who have local school board budgets, who have local fire department budgets, who have local town and city and county budgets. They get their dollars from Federal funds, from local funds, from State funds, but they don't come at the end of the budget process and say, Members of Congress from all over the world, can you please approve my budget? No. And I don't think they should be treated that way.

So I hope that the changes we made remain in place. But above all, I hope that we respect the citizens, the American citizens who live in the District of Columbia, the residents who live here.

And lastly, we were elected to be Members of Congress. But I was not elected to be the Mayor of Washington, D.C., and I was not elected to be a member of the Washington, D.C. City Council. They have their own government. They can govern themselves well. They have their own finances. Let's give them the respect they deserve. And I hope as time goes on, these victories that we had, not for us--it's not going to get me reelected in my district--but for the people in Washington, D.C., that they stay in place.

And again, to my colleagues, if you want to make these points, make them back home, make them on the national level. Don't pick on the residents of D.C. to make your point.

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