Republicans Launch First Attack on D.C. Home Rule of New Congress

Press Release

As Congress prepares for the President's State of the Union, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said she would do all that is necessary to keep a bill reintroduced by Senator David Vitter (R-LA) that attacks the District of Columbia's local labor laws from moving forward, as she did last Congress. Norton said, "D.C.'s labor laws have been thrown into a national anti-labor bill in a way that Senator Vitter could not do with local or state labor laws anywhere else." The bill continues House and Senate Republican efforts from last Congress to undermine collective bargaining rights nationally and uniquely target D.C. bargaining rights.

"One reason our unions favor statehood is that they understand that the District has been subjected to politically motivated efforts to restrict labor and organizing rights that will uniquely hurt our local workers," Norton said. "This latest attempt to target the District goes after labor, but Senator Vitter apparently does not see the contradiction with widespread Republican support for local control over local affairs."

The bill, the so-called Freedom From Union Violence Act of 2015 (S. 62), would make it a special federal crime to engage in violence during a labor dispute in connection with interstate commerce and commerce solely within the District, but not solely within states.

Source