D.C. delegate to Congress silenced at hearing [View all]
Source: Washington Post
"... Rep. Trent Franks’s district in suburban Phoenix is two time zones away from Washington, a fact not lost on D.C. leaders as the Arizona Republican presided Thursday over the latest in a long series of attempts to control social issues in the nation’s capital.
At issue this time was his bill, with 193 co-sponsors, to ban all abortions in the District beyond 20 weeks, except to save the life of the mother.
Adding insult to injury, from the point of view of local officials, was that Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), the District’s lone, nonvoting member of Congress — sitting in the front row of a subcommittee hearing room — was not allowed to speak.
Presiding over the hearing, Franks, who frequently cites the U.S. Constitution, said Congress has the authority to “exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever” in the District. He also described late-term abortions as “inhumane” and “torturous,” and he called them “the greatest human rights atrocity in the United States today.”
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Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/2012/05/17/gIQAAcEGXU_story.html
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