[WardFive] Fw: NORTON'S YEAR-END REPORT: Emboldened by Significant Legislative and Economic Victories for D.C. in the 112th Congress, Despite an Ultra-Conservative House, Norton Prepares for an Even Better 113th Congress

Albrette "Gigi" Ransom

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Subject: NORTON'S YEAR-END REPORT: Emboldened by Significant Legislative and Economic Victories for D.C. in the 112th Congress, Despite an Ultra-Conservative House, Norton Prepares for an Even Better 113th Congress

Emboldened by Significant Legislative and Economic Victories for D.C. in the 112^th Congress, Despite an Ultra-Conservative House, Norton Prepares for an Even Better 113^th Congress

 

 

Introduction: What Norton Won in the 112^th Congress, and What to Expect in the 113^th

 

After wringing victories for the District of Columbia piece by piece from the 112^th Congress, the most conservative in her career, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) plans to make the most of President Barack Obama's re-election, a larger Democratic majority in the Senate, and additional Democrats in the House during the 113^th Congress.  She has already had a very good introductory meeting with Senator Thomas Carper (D-DE), who is replacing retiring Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) as the chair of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which has jurisdiction over the District of Columbia. 

 

Norton has been able to achieve legislative victories for D.C. despite serving in the minority for most of her congressional career, and continued this success in the 112^th Congress, even though this has been one of the most partisan, unproductive and dysfunctional in American history.  Republican attacks on the District's right to govern itself, including spending its local funds as residents desire, led to unprecedented civil disobedience by Mayor Vincent Gray, a majority of the D.C. Council, and District residents.  Although Republican aggression against the District's home rule continued unabated throughout the 112^th Congress, the Congresswoman defeated virtually all these attempts, and she got more bills signed into law than almost any other House member, as she had in prior Congresses.  The 112^th Congress was particularly significant for being the first since the 103^rd in which Norton's D.C. statehood bill was introduced in the Senate, giving her a head start on statehood for the 113^th. 

 

Norton also made notable economic gains for D.C. this Congress, especially enactment of her Southwest Waterfront Redevelopment bill, which will create a 3.2 million-square-foot mixed-use community, and enactment of the Surface Transportation bill, written by a conference committee on which Norton served, as well as the opening of a Greyhound bus terminal inside Union Station. 

 

Despite nearly ceaseless anti-home-rule attacks, Norton passed important home-rule legislation this Congress, including every Senate Appropriations Committee-approved D.C. Appropriations bill free of anti-home-rule riders, as in the 111^th Congress.  Perhaps most important was her bill to allow the District government to spend its local funds and remain open whenever the federal government shuts down,  expected to be approved in an omnibus appropriations bill due out early next year.  Her D.C. Hatch Act Reform Act, now awaiting the President's signature, treats D.C. government employees the same as other local and state government employees under the federal Hatch Act, instead of as federal employees, and allows D.C. government employees to be governed by a local Hatch Act.  Her D.C. Special Election Reform Act allows the city flexibility in scheduling special elections.  A Norton bill requiring the armed services to display the D.C. flag whenever the flags of the 50 states are displayed is also awaiting the President's signature.  The first statue representing the District will move into the U.S. Capitol next year as a result of a Norton law, and she defeated a bill to nationalize the D.C. War Memorial.  Norton rallied a national coalition to defeat a post-20-week (pre-viability) abortion ban bill on the House floor that targeted only women and physicians in D.C.   She successfully fought back when the fiscal year 2012 House Republican budget proposed means testing her D.C. Tuition Access Grant Program (DCTAG) to pay for Speaker John Boehner's (R-OH) private school voucher program here.  Her fight left DCTAG, which has doubled college attendance by District residents, untouched, and Norton expects a small funding increase DCTAG when the final fiscal year 2013 D.C. Appropriations bill is approved.

 

The ultra-conservative nature of the 112^th Congress did not affect Norton's aggressive D.C. economic development agenda, however, an area where she has achieved notable success throughout her congressional service.  Most significant this Congress was her Southwest Waterfront Redevelopment law, which will create a new, mixed-use neighborhood here, to be known as The Wharf, bringing thousands of jobs and generating billions of dollars in revenue for the city and the local economy.   The new law will complete the revitalization of the entire D.C. waterfront, which began with her Southeast Federal Center Public-Private Development Act of 2000, now producing a mixed-use development known as The Yards.

 

Intent on making Union Station a major engine for the D.C. economy, Norton took advantage of her seniority on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) this Congress to bring the first significant changes in the station since it was rehabilitated in the 1980s.  Greyhound opened a bus terminal inside Union Station, joining four other intercity bus companies that Norton brought there in recent years, and freeing the valuable old Greyhound terminal in NoMa for redevelopment and new D.C. tax revenue.   For the first time, intercity buses no longer must pick up and discharge residents and tourists on street corners.  The Union Station redevelopment master plan, mandated by Norton, was rolled out by Amtrak this year.  She will seek funding to ready the station and its retail space for the long-term, dramatic changes that will be needed to accommodate high-speed rail there.  In light of these developments, the Department of Transportation's Inspector General began the first-ever audit of Union Station this Congress, at Norton's request. 

 

After successfully fighting off relentless Republican attacks on the city's democratic rights in the 112^th Congress, Norton expects less brazen, and fewer, attempts in the 113^th.  However, she is preparing for one possible repeat on the first day of the new Congress.  House Republicans may again adopt rules prohibiting the District from voting on the House floor in the Committee of the Whole, a vote that Norton first secured in the 103^rd Congress and that has been permitted since then whenever Democrats control the House but prohibited under Republican control.  Norton will vigorously seek to restore this first and only D.C. vote on the House floor in the 113^th Congress.

 

The act of barring a vote for Americans who pay federal taxes, however, did not foretell the progress Norton would make this Congress in D.C.'s quest for equal citizenship rights.  Most significant, the Congresswoman brought the District closer to budget autonomy than ever, and she got a D.C. statehood bill introduced in the Senate.  For the first time, a conservative House chair with jurisdiction over D.C., Darrell Issa (R-CA), a Republican House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor (VA), and a leading Republican governor, Bob McDonnell (VA), announced their support for D.C. budget autonomy.  Norton worked closely with Chairman Issa, not only on budget autonomy, but also on other vital D.C. legislation, including the D.C. Hatch Act Reform Act and the D.C. Special Election Reform Act.  He also initiated a hearing on the limitations on building heights in the District imposed by the federal Height Act.  Although significant changes to the Height Act are not contemplated, Issa and Norton agreed that the District and the National Capital Planning Commission should conduct the first-ever joint study on the economic and aesthetic consequences of changes to the law outside of the monumental core.

 

 

Norton's D.C. Economic Development Projects -- Shock Absorbers for Coming Federal Spending Cuts

 

Even if the "fiscal cliff," the steep, across-the-board cuts in domestic and defense spending along with tax increases, is avoided, the need for deficit reduction means that the District and the rest of the Washington region, perhaps more than the rest of the country, will face new economic headwinds.  In addition to the federal spending cuts that will affect all state and local governments, the large number of federal employees and contractors who live and work here makes the city particularly vulnerable.  Consequently, Norton will persist in prioritizing D.C. economic development in the next Congress.  She expects that her work bringing jobs and economic development to D.C. will continue to help diversify and cushion the city's economy, as it already has with the 10-year, $1.2 trillion discretionary spending cuts that went into effect in 2011. 

 

 

Norton's Subcommittee Initiatives Bringing Record Federal Construction and Jobs to D.C.

 

The Congresswoman is building on the $1.2 billion she got for the construction of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) headquarters complex at the St. Elizabeths West Campus in Ward 8 in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (stimulus bill) when she chaired the Economic Development Subcommittee.  Norton has secured new funding for 2013 for the construction, which will continue for years, but at a slower pace than previously because of budget restraints.  The General Services Administration, which funds federal buildings, will no longer split funding between construction of the Ward 8 DHS project on the St. Elizabeths West Campus and the expansion of the Ward 3 DHS Nebraska Avenue complex.  Instead, construction funding will go exclusively to the Ward 8 site (also reducing traffic and construction noise which had brought complaints from neighbors of the Ward 3 site).  A historic building on the St. Elizabeths West Campus, the next to be rehabilitated at the site, will house the DHS Secretary and headquarters staff when they move from the Nebraska Avenue complex. 

The D.C. economy will get a boost when the new Coast Guard headquarters the first federal building east of the Anacostia River, opens in 2013 on the St. Elizabeths West Campus, bringing the first 3,500 of 14,000 federal workers, and their consumer spending, to Ward 8.  Norton has already begun working with the Coast Guard to facilitate jobs for D.C. residents at its new headquarters.

 

By publishing monthly hiring and small business contracting reports, holding community roundtable hearings, and making unannounced visits, Norton has helped keep a steady 22-23 percent rate of employment for D.C. workers at the St. Elizabeths site, even though federal law prohibits residency hiring preferences, and even though D.C. is only 10 percent of the region's population.  Forty percent of the work has gone to small businesses, and many D.C. disadvantaged businesses have won contracts, including a District business that installed all of the sprinklers in the large Coast Guard headquarters building.  In addition to the St. Elizabeths complex, Norton monitors hiring and contracting at a dozen federal buildings in D.C. that are in varying stages of total rehabilitation, or, like the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, are being constructed.

 

 

Norton's Votes in Committees Count for D.C. -- New Surface Transportation Law and Other Committee Funds

 

Norton's work on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) was especially important to D.C. this Congress, where she served on the conference committee that produced the first Surface Transportation law in six years.  The law will spur road, bridge, and mass transit construction beginning next year.  Her work on the T&I Committee continues to fund the 11^th Street Bridge construction, whose first phase will be finished in 2013 and will be entirely completed in 2015.  She continues to get funds, in installments, for a new Frederick Douglass South Capitol Street Bridge, including $68 million this Congress.  As a member of the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment, she has given priority each year to getting funds to reduce storm water overflow in D.C., especially in light of the chronic flooding that has worsened in Ward 5's Bloomingdale and LeDroit Park neighborhoods.  Norton expects $15 million for storm water overflow mitigation in the final fiscal year 2013 D.C. Appropriations bill, and will request significantly more funds in the next Congress.

 

As the most senior regional member of the T&I Committee, Norton has given special attention to the region's priority for the fourth $150 million installment of the $1.5 billion authorized over 10 years for Metro capital improvements and maintenance, expected to be included in a fiscal year 2013 omnibus appropriations bill.  She got the first hearing on the June 2009 Red Line train crash that killed nine people, including seven from D.C., and says the funds are indispensible to Metro's safety upgrades.  Motivated by official reports of procurement and ethics problems at the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA), Norton introduced a bill requiring the regional agency to comply with the Federal Acquisition Regulations, which govern every aspect of the acquisition process for virtually every federal executive branch agency.  Norton argues that MWAA, because it was created by Congress, operates federally owned airports (Reagan National and Dulles International), and receives significant federal funds, should abide by the same contracting procedures rules that govern virtually every federal agency.  She is working to pass the bill in the lame-duck session or the 113^th Congress.

 

 

Norton's Stimulus Funds Build and Expand Healthcare Facilities and Affordable Housing in D.C.

 

Norton's work to get stimulus funds for D.C. continues to pay off for vital city priorities that otherwise would have been delayed for years.  These federal funds have built or expanded more than a dozen low- and moderate-income housing developments, among them Benning Terrace, Wade Apartment, Highland Dwellings, Kentucky Courts, Arthur Capper, Sheridan Station, and Mathews Memorial Terrace Apartments.  Housing benefitting from stimulus greening funds include Garfield Hills, Gibson Plaza, and Johnson Towers.  Stimulus and Affordable Care Act funds are also building or significantly expanding numerous healthcare centers throughout the District, including Columbia Road Health Services, Community of Hope, La Clinica del Pueblo, Mary's Center for Maternal and Child Care, and several Unity Health Care centers, notably, the Unity Anacostia Health Center, which opened in May of this year.

 

 

Stepping in to Keep D.C. Economic Development on Track

 

This year, Norton went beyond her persistent pressure on the National Park Service (NPS) to give some priority to the rehabilitation of the Shaw home of Dr. Carter G. Woodson, the father of Black history, to become a National Historic Site like the Frederick Douglass home in Anacostia.  Despite a 2003 Norton law authorizing the purchase and rehabilitation of the Woodson home and adjoining properties, NPS has not started the rehabilitation.  This month, the Congresswoman wrote the President asking him to note the Woodson home for priority in his fiscal year 2014 NPS budget, instead of leaving this item to the usual NPS discretion, and to indicate that NPS should to develop a timeline, cost estimate, and strategy for completing the project.  The Congresswoman will push for work on the home to begin next year.

 

Norton stepped in this Congress when new U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development underwriting guidelines threatened an existing financing arrangement for the large, mixed-use CityMarket at O project in Shaw.  Construction has now begun, and the first building, a new Giant supermarket, will open in 2013, with apartments and condominiums scheduled to open in 2014. 

 

This year, when an economic generator for the city was at risk, Norton succeeded in saving commercial filming and photography at Union Square, near the U.S. Botanic Garden, the only place near the U.S. Capitol where filming was permitted.  After the transfer of jurisdiction over Union Square from the NPS to the Architect of the Capitol, the city, filmmakers, and photographers feared the loss of Union Square filming.  Norton met with the Capitol Police, which agreed to alter its policy and to permit commercial filming and photography to continue there.  Building on this success, Norton will introduce a new bill in the 113^th Congress to expand the sites for commercial filming and photography near the Capitol, allowing the  District to capture tax and other revenue for D.C. that now go to cities such as Baltimore, which allow commercial filming of sites that resemble the Capitol and its grounds.

 

 

Home-Rule Progress Despite Attacks

 

As the 113^th Congress approaches, Norton is preparing for the Republican attacks on the District to continue, but to be fewer in number, and with less force, for several reasons.  While Republicans retained control of the House in last November's elections, they lost a net eight seats, the President won re-election decisively, and Democrats increased their majority in the Senate.  Moreover, Republicans were unsuccessful in almost all of their attacks on the District this Congress.  Norton defeated a post-20-week (pre-viability) D.C. abortion ban bill on the House floor, and prevented Republicans from overturning D.C.'s gun safety, needle exchange, marriage equality and medical marijuana laws.

 

 

Shutdown-Avoidance Success -- On the Way to Getting Budget Autonomy

 

With the 113^th Congress only days away, Republican hostility has already manifested itself on the District's budget autonomy referendum, expected to go before the voters during the April special election being held to fill the at-large seat vacated by D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson.  Norton fully shares the Council's frustration with Republican obstruction of passage of her D.C. budget autonomy bill in Congress.  Requiring congressional approval of a city-passed balanced budget is not only a serious and unprincipled home-rule violation, but also imposes additional and unnecessary costs, operational difficulties, and uncertainty on the city.  Norton has already begun working to prevent Republicans from keeping the referendum off of the ballot or from overturning it if, as expected, voters approve it.  Nevertheless, the Congresswoman has not hidden from constituents the serious political and legal risks of the referendum.  Because of these risks, she has continued to work on her budget autonomy bill, particularly considering the support for budget autonomy from high-level Republicans, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (VA), Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (CA), and Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell.  Unfortunately, the claim that the referendum would prevent anti-home-rule riders from being attached to D.C.'s local budget is not accurate, nor is the claim that the referendum poses no other risks to the District, considering ominous remarks in the press and to the Congresswoman's office from Members' offices after the referendum was announced.  Even when the city gets budget autonomy, Congress will always have the authority to restrict the city's use of its local funds until D.C. becomes a state. 

 

President Obama has indicated his support for budget autonomy in two of his budgets, and has personally told Norton he will work with Congress to achieve it.  She will seek an even stronger White House role in 2013 to remove D.C.'s local budget from the congressional appropriations process.

 

Norton's budget autonomy bill helped bring new focus and success to her permanent D.C. shutdown-avoidance bill, the District of Columbia Local Funds Continuation Act.  Several near-shutdowns of the federal government this Congress, which also would have forced the D.C. government to shut down, dramatically pointed up why the city's local, balanced budget should not come to Congress and why the D.C. government should never be shut down by federal spending disputes unrelated to the city.  President Obama put a permanent shutdown-avoidance provision in his fiscal year 2013 budget, the Republican-led House Appropriations Committee indicated its support in its report accompanying the fiscal year 2013 D.C. Appropriations bill, and Norton was able to get the shutdown-avoidance provision in the Senate Appropriations Committee-passed fiscal year 2013 D.C. Appropriations bill.

 

 

More Home Rule for D.C.: a Hatch Act and a Special Election Law of Our Own

 

Congress passed two Norton Hatch Act bills for the District, achieving Hatch Act equality after a 21-year fight.  Her D.C. Hatch Act Reform Act is awaiting the President's signature.  For the first time, D.C. government employees will be treated the same as all other local and state government employees under the federal Hatch Act -- no longer the same as federal employees -- and the city has already adopted its own local Hatch Act for D.C. government employees.  Norton's other bill, the Hatch Act National Capital Region Parity Act, is also awaiting the President's signature.  Although not well known in D.C., federal law authorizes the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to permit federal employees in parts of the National Capital Region, except in D.C., to run for local partisan offices as independents.  Norton's bill permits the same for federal employees who live in D.C., and she will request that OPM provide equal treatment for the District's federal employees beginning next year.  Both Norton bills were part of a larger national Hatch Act reform bill, which Norton worked on in committee, that rationalizes penalties and gives state and local employees more flexibility under the federal Hatch Act.

 

 

Victories for Major Symbols of Citizenship -- the D.C. Flag, the First D.C. Statue in the Capitol, and the Preservation of the D.C. War Memorial -- Good News for Statehood

 

In the 112^th Congress, Norton achieved three symbols of statehood for D.C – the display of the D.C. flag by the armed services along with the flags of the 50 states, the display of the first statue representing the District in the U.S. Capitol along with the statues from the 50 states, and the preservation of the D.C. War Memorial as a state memorial.

 

The D.C. flag, an important symbol of the city's equal place in the nation, was recognized as the equivalent of state flags.  A House-passed provision requiring the armed services to display the D.C. and territorial flags whenever the flags of the 50 states are displayed was included in the final fiscal year 2013 Defense Authorization bill, now awaiting the President's signature.  D.C. resident Tomi Rucker wrote Norton about her family's dismay when the state flags were raised to honor every graduate from boot camp at Naval Station Great Lakes except the D.C. flag to honor her son, D.C. resident Seaman Jonathan Rucker.  Norton said that the flags of foreign nations are regularly raised in the U.S. to honor foreign visitors, and D.C.'s active duty service members and veterans deserve no less.  Visits from D.C. veterans to senators, Norton's press conference with other Delegates, whose constituents were similarly mistreated, her Veterans Day press conference at the D.C. War Memorial, and her speeches on the House floor kept the fight going until D.C.'s flag got its due in the lame-duck session.  After the President signs the bill, the D.C. flag will always be displayed whenever the state flags are raised by our armed forces.

 

After years of rebuffs, Norton found a way to get a statue representing the District in the U.S. Capitol, with D.C.'s Frederick Douglass statue moving there next year.  Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) authorized the move in his fiscal year 2013 D.C. Appropriations bill, and a separate bill authorizing the move was enacted.  Norton said that Douglass, who was not only a major international civil and human rights figure, but also a D.C. resident, a D.C. recorder of deeds and a president of the Reconstruction-era Freedman's Bank, is the perfect first statue to represent the District in the Capitol.  Norton has requested that the statue, now at One Judiciary Square, be moved to the Capitol and dedicated in a Capitol ceremony during Black History Month in 2013.  Next year, she will introduce a bill to move D.C.'s Pierre L'Enfant statue into the Capitol, which, like the Douglass statue, was commissioned by D.C. in anticipation of passage of Norton's bill authorizing the city to place two statues in the Capitol, as every state is entitled to do.

 

After negotiating with House leaders and other Members, Norton convinced Republicans to withdraw a bill that would have nationalized D.C.'s War Memorial to honor all World War I veterans, and in turn, she co-sponsored legislation, passed by the House, that would allow a national WW I memorial to be built on federal land in the District, provided that it does not interfere with or adversely impact D.C.'s memorial.  Soon after WW I, states, like the District, created their own memorials to honor their veterans of the war.  The D.C. memorial, bearing the names of almost 500 D.C. residents who died in WW I, was paid for by D.C. residents, including school children, and will remain dedicated to D.C. veterans alone.

 

 

Norton Defeats Biggest Home-Rule Attack and Keeps Others at Bay

 

In response to an unprecedented home-rule attack on the District, its women, and its physicians, Norton developed a national strategy that defeated the top legislative priority of the National Right to Life Committee.  The bill would have barred only women in D.C. from obtaining a post-20-week (pre-viability) abortion, and would have imposed criminal penalties on physicians only in D.C. for performing such abortions.  On the House floor and in national television interviews, Norton continuously highlighted the national implications of the bill, and successfully worked with national pro-choice groups to defeat it in a vote on the House floor. 

 

The Congresswoman had near-total success in defeating anti-home-rule attacks this Congress.  She kept anti-choice groups from making permanent the rider that prohibits D.C. from spending its own local funds on abortion services for low-income women, which currently has to be re-imposed annually.  Norton feels new strength in her fight against the annual D.C. abortion rider, the only anti-home-rule rider on D.C.'s local budget this Congress.  She has taken note that the Senate's D.C. Appropriations bills contained no anti-home-rule riders in the 112^th Congress, and that women were awakened by the threats to their reproductive rights this year.  Most important, Norton defeated Republican attempts to re-impose the ban on the city's use of its local funds for needle-exchange programs, which had led to a record number of deaths and cases of HIV/AIDS in the District.  The District faced three attacks on its gun safety laws this Congress.  Despite 174 co-sponsors this Congress, Norton was successful in keeping from the House floor a bill that would have abolished D.C.'s gun safety laws, which was similar to the gun amendment that forced her to delay the D.C. House Voting Rights Act as it neared final passage in 2010.  She defeated an amendment in the House Judiciary Committee that would have allowed out-of-state residents with state-issued concealed carry permits to carry concealed guns in the District.  Norton also got removed from the final fiscal year 2013 Defense Authorization bill a House-passed sense of the Congress provision that active duty personnel should be exempt from the gun laws of only one jurisdiction, the District of Columbia.  Although such a provision would not have been legally binding, Norton worked hard to remove it for fear it would open the door for more anti-home-rule gun legislation.

 

 

A Robust D.C. Public Safety Agenda

 

Lighting Parks to Chase Crime

 

            Crime on federal land is rare, but a spate of crime added new urgency to Norton's D.C. public safety agenda this year.  Concerned about seven muggings on a path in the NPS-owned Fort Totten Park connecting the Fort Totten Metro station to a nearby neighborhood, Norton inspected the path, and then invited Ward 5 Councilmember Kenyon McDuffie and NPS, D.C. National Guard, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), U.S. Park Police, D.C. Department of Transportation, and Metropolitan Police Department officials to her office to develop both interim and permanent solutions to reduce crime on the path.  As a result, NPS and WMATA have now placed temporary lights on the path.  NPS is working to identify funding for a permanent solution, including paving the path and installing solar-powered lights, which have been successful in combating crime on a nearby path.

The Congresswoman has continued to walk the National Mall annually since several muggings occurred there in 2006 to assess lighting and Park Police presence.  When she found three lights burned-out this year, she recommended that the Park Police, which patrols the Mall in shifts, be equipped with NPS forms to note lights that need replacement to avoid gaps in public safety. 

 

Using Senatorial Courtesy to Ensure a Responsive Federal Criminal Justice System in D.C.

 

Norton has had unprecedented influence on the selection of federal law enforcement officers in the District, particularly judges.  A majority of the judges on the federal district court here were recommended by Norton and nominated by either President Obama or President Bill Clinton, both of whom granted her senatorial courtesy to recommend major federal law enforcement officials here.  Several Senior Status judges on the federal district court here were also recommended by Norton and nominated by President Clinton.

 

With the assistance of her Federal Law Enforcement Nominating Commission, Norton continued to use senatorial courtesy, an important element of statehood, to shape the direction of federal law enforcement in the District this Congress.  In September 2012, the President nominated the Congresswoman's recommendation for a district court vacancy, Ketanji Brown Jackson, who would be the first African American woman appointed to the district court here in 32 years, the second in the history of that court to serve, and the only one currently on the bench.  The Congresswoman expects the President to re-nominate Jackson early in the 113^th Congress, and believes that she will be easily confirmed by the Senate, because she was previously confirmed for her present position as a vice chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

 

In the 112^th Congress, five D.C. residents recommended by Norton for federal law enforcement positions in the District were nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate: three district court judges (Amy Berman Jackson, James E. Boasberg, and Rudolph Contreras); the director of the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency for the District of Columbia (Nancy Ware); and the U.S. Marshal for the Superior Court for the District of Columbia (Michael Hughes).  Last Congress, the President nominated and the Senate confirmed Norton's recommendations for the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia (Ronald Machen), two district court judges (Beryl A. Howell and Robert L. Wilkins), and the U.S. Marshal for the District of Columbia (Edwin D. Sloane).  In addition, last Congress, at Norton's request, the President designated former D.C. police chief Issac Fulwood as chair of the U.S. Parole Commission.  Norton felt strongly about that designation because, at the District's request, D.C. Code felons are under the jurisdiction of the Parole Commission, where they are the largest cohort, and they are housed by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

 

 

Pushing Our Parks to Their Full Potential

 

Parks Are for People in Our Neighborhoods

 

            Norton's annual all-parks town hall meetings have sparked efforts to make D.C.'s National Park Service (NPS)`-owned neighborhood parks (most of the city's parks) more neighborhood-friendly.  Her goal in the next Congress is to bring more playground equipment to existing NPS parks in D.C.  As a pilot, she has begun working with the D.C. government, NPS, and parents to create the first child-oriented park downtown for the increasing number of families with kids who now call downtown home.

 

At the request of Glover Park residents, Norton introduced a bill this Congress to designate a trail in Glover Archbold Park, an NPS park, in Northwest as the "Rachel Carson Nature Trail" in honor of the 50^th anniversary of the publication of Carson's groundbreaking book, Silent Spring. Norton will re-introduce the bill next Congress to honor Carson, a world-renowned environmental scientist who studied changes in nature as a federal employee at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  Norton believes naming the trail, as requested, would also be a tribute to the Glover Park community's appreciation for our national parks and their attention to them.  She will work with federal employees, their unions and environmental groups, among others, to pass a bill honoring a federal employee who did groundbreaking research of global significance on the dangers of some pesticides.

 

This year, Norton helped kick off the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens segment of the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail, the last segment of a 60-mile network of bike and pedestrian trails that will allow residents to walk to every major destination on the river, including Nationals Park, RFK Stadium, and the National Arboretum.  Norton has gotten most of the funding for the trails in Surface Transportation laws.

 

 

…and On the Mall

 

   Norton has already begun to build on her successful efforts to enliven the National Mall with music and dance.  This year, in conjunction with WMATA and NPS, Norton launched Lunchtime Music on the Mall, which brought a variety of mostly amateur musical performers, playing everything from classical to rock and roll, during the warm-weather months.  Her goal is to make the Mall inviting to D.C. residents and office workers during weekdays, when there is little daytime activity on the Mall.

 

Working in conjunction with the same partners and with celebrity judge Nygel Lythgoe of "So You Think You Can Dance," Norton has sponsored National Dance Day on the Mall every year since 2010.  During the next Congress, she will also work with NPS, the Smithsonian Institution, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to expand art and entertainment on the Mall.  She also will seek their assistance to get chairs and tables placed under trees on the Mall, and to allow food trucks there.

 

http://www.norton.house.gov/

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