Photo by SpecialKRB

Members of Congress are making their voices heard on two issues that affect D.C.—a school voucher program and needle-exchange programs.

The Post reported yesterday that Speaker of the House John Boehner and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) sent President Obama letter asking that he reinstate funding for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which offers 1,600 public school students $8,000 a year for private school tuition. In February, Obama announced that he was cutting funding for the program, which since its inception in 2004 has provoked debate in Congress and between city officials.

At the same time, D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and 31 other representatives are pleading with Republicans to to allow D.C. to use its own funds for needle-exchange programs, writes the Examiner. For years, the programs have been victim of congressional riders; early last year, one of the biggest providers of clean needles in D.C. shut down after 12 years of fund-raising troubles caused by a 12-year congressional ban on the use of local funds for the programs.