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Washington — The new mayor of the District of Columbia’s first week on the job remained relatively quiet considering the important events that occurred in the city and the country.

D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray (D) spent his first full day – Mon., Jan. 3 — in private meetings on city business, but he was in the public eye on Tue., Jan. 4 on Capitol Hill to help D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton keep her vote on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives when the Committee of the Whole convenes. The GOP-led House’s vote on Wed., Jan 5, to take the Committee of the Whole vote of Norton and the other delegates away did not please Gray at all. “I am extremely disappointed that the House majority in the 112th Congress started off on the wrong foot by adopting rules that silenced the small voice District of Columbia taxpayers had during the past two Congresses,” Gray, 68, said.

“The House leadership today stood and called the House of Representatives the ‘people’s House’, but then went on to shut the door to the people who live in the nation’s capital.”

Gray said that the votes of the delegates have been declared constitutional by federal courts, and that “the people who live in the capital of democracy should not be forced to suffer the consequences of changes in political parties and partisan whims.”

Gray said that the fight for D.C. statehood will continue despite the congressional setback.

Read more at the Washington Informer

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