Victory for Domestic Partnership Law
Activists Continue to Demand End to Anti-Democratic Riders on DC Appropriations Bill
by Wayne Turner

February 2002
volume 39, number 1

The District of Columbia will finally be allowed to implement its Domestic Partnership law, which was first passed by the D.C. Council back in 1992. Called the "Health Benefits Expansion Act," the D.C. Domestic Partnership law is relatively modest - it permits unmarried couples, both gay and straight, to register with the City, granting a legal nod to their committed relationships for things like hospital visitation rights. The law also permits D.C. city employees to purchase, at their own expense, health insurance for their partners.

This long overdue victory on D.C.'s domestic partners law is a significant result of the ongoing struggle by District residents for full democracy and self-determination. Every year since its passage, Congress has placed a "rider" on the D.C. Appropriations Bill, blocking implementation of the Health Benefits Expansion Act. The prohibition is just one of many examples of how social conservatives in Congress impose their will on D.C. residents through budget riders.

The District of Columbia's budget, funded almost entirely by locally generated revenue, is subject to Congressional authority unlike any other city, state, or U.S. territory. Local tax dollars are handed over to the federal government, and then appropriated back to the District, as one of fourteen Appropriations Bills passed annually by Congress. The District of Columbia is essentially treated like a federal agency, such as the Department of the Defense, or Health and Human Services. The wishes of D.C.'s 600,000 residents, elected Mayor and Council are inconsequential.

No other facet of D.C.'s lack of democracy has as deep, and direct an impact on the lives of District residents as the appropriations process. HIV infection rates in the District of Columbia are twelve times the national average, yet Congress continues to prohibit the use of even local funding for a clean needle exchange program through riders to the D.C. Appropriations Bill. As a result, thousands of men, women and children in D.C. become infected with HIV, condemned by Congress to die a slow, horrific death from AIDS.

In 1998, District voters overwhelmingly approved D.C.'s Initiative 59, so that sick and dying patients with HIV/AIDS, cancer, and other serious illnesses could have safe access to medical marijuana to ease their suffering. The measure, organized by local AIDS and health care advocates, passed by 69 percent, winning every voting precinct, and all eight wards. These activists have successfully prevented Congress from completely overturning Initiative 59. However, like D.C.'s Domestic Partnership law, Congress has instead placed an annual amendment on the D.C. budget, blocking implementation of Initiative 59 for the past three years.

The FY2002 budget was passed with a total of 40 riders that fall into six categories: budgetary controls and operating and reporting requirements; contracting restrictions; D.C. government and employee restrictions; powers and responsibilities delegated to D.C. elected and appointed officials; education and school restrictions; and legal overrides and social restrictions.

From marches and rallies, to citizen lobbying efforts, and even acts of civil disobedience, the Stand Up for Democracy in D.C. Coalition has, since its inception, played a central role in the yearly fight over the D.C. Appropriations Bill. Last year, the D.C. Democracy 7 earned unprecedented national coverage for D.C. democracy issues, including two articles in the New York Times on local objections to the D.C. Appropriations process. The D-7 faced six months in jail for standing up in the House of Representatives gallery and voting "No!" on the D.C. Appropriations Bill. As defense attorney Paul Hurst noted in his closing statement, "Only two votes really count for the residents of Washington, D.C." - your vote for President, which was established less than forty years ago by the 23rd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and your vote on a jury. The Democracy 7 were ultimately acquitted on charges of "Disruption of Congress'" in a jury trial of fellow D.C. residents.

Civil disobedience has certainly helped put the D.C. Appropriations Bill on the map, and in the minds of D.C. residents, activists, journalists, and our potential supporters nationwide. However, it remains only part of the ongoing effort to remove the unwanted, anti-democratic, social riders attached by Congress to the D.C. Budget.

An ad hoc coalition of both local and national organizations has been working successfully together in a concerted legislative effort to end the imposition of unwanted riders on the D.C. Appropriations Bill. These coalition partners include the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance, the American Foundation for AIDS Research, and the Human Rights Campaign, ACT UP/D.C., the D.C. Statehood Green Party, and Stand Up for Democracy - each bringing their own perspectives to a united front in opposition to Congressional intrusion. This past cycle, Stand Up for Democracy Coalition launched its "Free D.C.'s Budget Campaign." More than 300 local and national organizations, elected officials, and activists have signed Stand Up's consensus statement, which not only calls for a D.C. Appropriations Bill free of anti-democratic riders, but also demands full budget and legislative autonomy for the District of Columbia.

Stand Up for Democracy prepared 440 legislative briefing packets, which teams of Stand Up's citizen-lobbyists hand delivered to the offices of every member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Organizers also held a rally at the historic John A. Wilson Building with featured speakers including U.S. Senators and Representatives, DC City Council members and area activists.

The D.C. budget battle has often been defensive, yet these consistent coalition efforts have successfully defeated even more draconian measures introduced annually, such as a prohibition of Gay adoption. With the input of community organizations and activists, the working group's legislative strategy won a real victory in removing the long-standing Domestic Partnership prohibition, setting an important precedent in removing other anti-democratic riders in the near future.

Thanks largely to the efforts of Carl Schmid, working with Council member David A Catania (R-At large), the ad hoc coalition enlisted the support of Representative Jim Kolbe, an openly Gay Republican Congressman from Arizona. Kolbe led the fight in the House of Representatives to allow the District of Columbia to use local funds to implement its Domestic Partnership law, winning in both the full Appropriations Committee, and a House floor vote of 226 to 194.

In the Democrat controlled Senate, the Domestic Partnership prohibition was also removed, and local funding for clean needle exchange was finally approved. However, the House-Senate conference committee ultimately adopted the House language, maintaining the block on needle exchange funding, Initiative 59, and other unwanted "riders."

Activists predict that prospects for removing the additional riders will greatly improve after the 2002 election. With a new Congress, the precedent-setting victory on Domestic Partnership, and the growing momentum of coalition supporters, even the Barr Amendment blocking Initiative 59 appears vulnerable in 2003.

However, this year could be the last year D.C. activists have to do battle over anti-democratic amendments added to the D.C. budget by Congress. D.C.'s non-voting delegate to Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton, has introduced a bill that would eliminate the long, drawn-out federal appropriations process for locally-raised D.C. tax dollars. The bill, "The District of Columbia Fiscal Integrity Act of 2001," would give the District of Columbia autonomy over its own local, taxpayer-raised budget beginning October 1, 2003. Congresswoman Connie Morella (R-MD), chair of the House Oversight Subcommittee on the District of Columbia, co-sponsored the bill, and it unanimously passed out of her committee last November. A Senate version will be introduced shortly by Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA), the Chair of the D.C. Appropriations Subcommittee.

Wayne Turner is an AIDS activist and a founding member of Stand Up for Democracy. He is the sponsor of D.C.'s medical marijuana Initiative 59. He can be reached at actupdc@aol.com.