We’ve noted that the congressional ban on the District’s ability to spend funds on needle exchange programs — which was lifted in 2007, only to be brought back to life by House Republicans in February — can have a negative effect on the health of many around the District. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, however, isn’t mincing words on the subject.

Check out the tirade Norton went on yesterday, as reported by The Hill’s Floor Action Blog:

“We have the highest AIDS rate in the United States only because the Congress of the United States has killed — I used these words advisedly — killed men, women and children in the District of Columbia by keeping the District for ten years from using needle exchange so that AIDS would spread throughout the city,” she said on the House floor.

[…]

She said that before D.C. home rule was granted in 1974, District residents were ruled by the federal government, and “that was mostly the work of Southern Democrats whose reasons were, among others… most definitely racial,” she said.

“What is happening today is not the work of Southern Democrats,” Holmes Norton added. “It is the work of the new Republican majority.”

Some pretty strong accusations there. But the Delegate wasn’t done! According to the report, Norton proceeded to charge House Republicans of dabbling in “autocracy” and declared that residents of the District “will not be traded off like we were slaves.” So much for the hopes that Norton and the new Republican majority would get on the same page, I guess.