home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
TIME - Man of the Year
/
CompactPublishing-TimeMagazine-TimeManOfTheYear-Win31MSDOS.iso
/
moy
/
101992
/
1019994.000
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1993-04-08
|
1KB
|
28 lines
THE WEEK, Page 19NATIONHome Rule or Death
By order of Congress, D.C. schedules a vote on capital punishment
The District of Columbia is adding something new to the
arguments over the death penalty: the contention that a vote for
capital punishment is a vote against home rule. Washington's
homicide rate is down slightly this year. But one of those slain
was Tom Barnes, an aide to Alabama Democratic Senator Richard
Shelby. The enraged Shelby pushed through Congress a law
ordering the District to hold a referendum on reinstating the
death penalty, and election officials last week put a sweeping
proposal on the Nov. 3 ballot. Nearly all the city's leading
politicians appealed to residents to vote no as a means of
expressing resentment against interference in the District's
affairs. Said Eleanor Holmes Norton, the city's nonvoting
delegate to Congress: "This is not about the death penalty. It
is about home rule." But recent savage crimes have aroused such
anger that the proposal has a chance of passing.