HOUSE APPROVES BILL THAT WOULD EASE FEDERAL GRIP ON WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON -- Congress took an important step toward granting the
nation's capital more control over its own affairs Thursday as the
House voted to remove a measure that bars the city from using local
tax money to help low-income women pay for abortions.

The legislation would also allow the city to legalize medical
marijuana -- a move that was overwhelmingly approved by voters in a
referendum in 1998 -- and to continue to finance needle-exchange programs.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat and the city's nonvoting member of
the House, said the bill's passage represented a major breakthrough
for home rule.

Removing the rider that barred financing for abortions was especially
important, Ms. Norton said, because it "has created severe hardships
for low-income women in the District."

"It has singled out the District and its women for unfair and unequal
treatment," she added.

The legislation, which is expected to pass in the Senate next week,
also blocks a measure that would have effectively prevented the city
from paying for needle-exchange programs intended to reduce the
spread of AIDS among intravenous drug users. It also ends the city's
school voucher program, which is federally financed.

Because Washington is not part of a state, Congress oversees most of
its local system of government and approves its budget. For decades,
federal lawmakers, most of whom live outside the city, have placed
riders or "special restrictions" in the bill authorizing how city
officials can use local tax dollars, and often these provisions went
against the will of city voters.

In 1998, for example, federal lawmakers blocked the city from
legalizing medical marijuana by adding a rider known as the Barr
Amendment, sponsored by Representative Bob Barr, a Republican from
Georgia who has since left Congress. That rider came after 69 percent
of voters in a referendum supported medical marijuana. The new
legislation removes that prohibition.

With a strong Democratic majority in both houses of Congress, city
residents hoped over the last year to win more local autonomy and
possibly voting rights, particularly because President Obama, a
co-sponsor of a 2007 bill to give the District of Columbia a voting
member in the House, has said his stance is unchanged.

The Senate and House leadership support granting the city a House
member, but legislative efforts have been blocked by opponents who
say it first requires a constitutional amendment. Republican
opponents of voting rights for the city also fear that giving
Washington a House member would eventually lead to the city's getting
two senators, both of whom would most likely be Democrats.

Susan Gibbs, a spokeswoman for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of
Washington, said the legislation's loosening of restrictions on
abortions was especially disconcerting.

"The abortion rate in this city already exceeds 40 percent of all
pregnancies," Ms. Gibbs said, citing 2005 data from a report released
by the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit organization focused on
reproductive health issues. "It's hard to figure out what the
justification would be to increase funding and encourage even more abortions."

City Health Department statistics, however, show that roughly 25
percent of all reported pregnancies in 2005 ended in abortion, and
that figure fell to 15 percent in 2007.

Thursday's legislation also marks the probable end to the city's
school voucher program.

The future of school vouchers in Washington "would best be decided by
the elected representatives of the people of the District," federal
lawmakers said in a report. If the city wants vouchers, they said, it
can decide before the next school year whether to create and finance a program.

The city's needle exchange programs have been a source of friction in
relations between local leaders and federal lawmakers.

Until 2007, when the ban was lifted, Washington was the only city in
the country forbidden by Congress from using both local and federal
tax dollars to distribute clean needles to drug addicts.

This year Representative Jack Kingston, Republican of Georgia, added
a rider to a bill that would have essentially reinstated the ban by
prohibiting the city from providing money to any needle exchange
program that operates within 1,000 feet of virtually any location
where children gather.

That rider was so restrictive that the only area left where programs
could have operated was graveyards or in the middle of the Potomac
River, city officials and needle exchange advocates said.
Representative Jose E. Serrano, Democrat of New York and chairman of
the House Appropriations Committee, fought to remove Mr. Kingston's
rider from the legislative package that was approved Thursday, and succeeded.

The bill also removed a similar rider that would have prevented
needle exchange programs anywhere in the country that receives
federal money from operating within 1,000 feet of places where children gather.

Home-rule advocates are still hopeful they can win the bigger battles.

In November, Ms. Norton proposed legislation seeking to limit
Congress's role in deciding how Washington is governed. Her bill
would continue to give Congress the power to overturn or impose laws
in the District, but it would end the requirement that Congress sign
off on each piece of legislation that is approved by the mayor and
the City Council before it could become law.

The bill would also free the city from having to obtain Congressional
approval of its annual budget.