DC Democracy Activists Converge on Congress
Telephone: (202) 232-2500
www.standupfordemocracy.org
September 10, 2001
For Immediate Release
Contact: Anise Jenkins, (202) 232-2500
Wayne Turner, (202) 547-9404
CAMPAIGN BEGINS TO FREE DC's BUDGET
Washington, DC -- Dozens of supporters turned out at a press conference and rally today, hosted by the Stand Up for Democracy in DC Coalition, to launch its Free DC's Budget Campaign. Gathering at the historic John A. Wilson Building, organizers prepared to converge on Capitol Hill to hand-deliver briefing materials to the sixty-five members of the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee, which is scheduled to vote on the District of Columbia budget on Wednesday, September 12.
"This process is illegitimate, undemocratic, and hazardous to the health of District of Columbia residents," said Anise Jenkins, President of Stand Up for Democracy.
More than a hundred local and national organizations, elected officials, and individuals have signed on to Stand Up's consensus letter to Congress demanding full budgetary and legislative autonomy for the District of Columbia. The statement also urges Congress to quickly pass the DC Appropriations bill free of anti-democratic and often controversial amendments, such as:
- The prohibition of local funding for DC's clean needle exchange program to help stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.
- The prohibition of local funding to implement DC's domestic partnership law, passed by the DC Council in 1991.
- The prohibition of local funding to provide abortion services for low-income women.
- Preventing the implementation of DC's medical marijuana Initiative 59, which was passed by 69% of District voters in a 1998 referendum.
The group also released a detailed report prepared by sociologist Dr. Mark David Richards, which outlines the DC Appropriations Bill process, its fiscal impact on the District of Columbia, and the 67 riders attached annually to the DC budget, 95% of which is funded through locally generated revenue. (Copies are available online at http://www.dcwatch.com/richards/010907.htm, or by contacting Stand Up).
Featured speakers at today's event include: Patsy Fleming, the former White House AIDS Policy Coordinator and President of DC's privately funded needle exchange program Prevention Works, US Senator Florence H. Pendleton (D-DC), US Senator Paul Strauss (D-DC), US Representative Ray Browne (D- DC), Council members David A. Catania (R-At Large), Adrian Fenty (D-Ward 4), Sharon Ambrose (D-Ward 6), DC Statehood Green Party member Martin Thomas, Umoja Party activist Ms Marilyn Preston-Killingham, and Stand Up for Democracy's President Anise Jenkins. [GLAA webmaster note: Pendleton, Strauss, and Browne are in fact not US Senators or Representative, though they are so called by the District. They are Shadow Senators and Shadow Representative elected by DC voters to advocate and lobby for DC Statehood, but with no official standing in the U.S. Congress. The only person with official standing in Congress as a representative of the District is Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District's non-voting Delegate to Congress.]
For more information, please visit www.standupfordemocracy.org or call (202) 232-2500. The next Coalition meeting will be at 6:30pm on Tuesday, September 11, at the National Council of Negro Women, 633 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. (Green/Yellow Metro Line: Archives/Navy Memorial Stop.)
