Norton Asks Oversight and Government Reform Committee to Decline to Intervene Into Local DC Affairs

For more information contact: James Jones, Communications Director
202.462.6000 x12 office / 202.557.4864 mobile / jjones@dcvote.org

November 4, 2009

Contact: Sonsyrea Tate Montgomery
202.225.8050 mobile/202.225.8143 office
Web Site: http://www.norton.house.gov
Sonsyrea.montgomery@mail.house.gov

Washington, DC – In a letter released today, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) asked Committee on Government Oversight and Reform Chairman Edolphus Towns (D-NY) and Subcommittee Chairman Stephen F. Lynch (D-MA) to decline the request of two Republican Committee members for a Committee investigation of the District’s funding of its HIV/AIDS programs following allegations reported in the Washington Post. In her letter, Norton, who has a long record of working to improve conditions for residents with HIV/AIDS, called the alleged misuse of funds “inexcusable.” However, she cited ongoing investigations by the District’s Inspector General and Attorney General, and hearings by the D.C. City Council. Norton said that a congressional committee investigation would not only violate D.C.’s home rule attention to this local matter, but would do so unnecessarily, considering the work underway by city officials.

“Members of Congress are not proxies for the District’s mayor and city council, and no Member of Congress would call for an investigation of any other local jurisdiction,” Norton wrote. In her letter, Norton cited Republican appropriations attachments banning needle exchange programs in the District that she said bears a large part of the responsibility for D.C.’s outsized HIV/AIDS rate compared to that of comparable cities. She noted that Republicans are making yet another attempt to effectively ban needle exchange programs here using the pending federal D.C. appropriations package.

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