In the coming weeks and months the 114 th Congress will debate a number of funding, governance, and constitutional issues affecting the District of Columbia, including budget and legislative autonomy, voting representation in the national legislature, federal appropriations, and congressionally supported education initiatives. In addition, Congress may consider measures intended to void or otherwise modify acts and initiatives approved by District citizens and their elected representatives. The mechanisms available to Congress in carrying out its oversight of District affairs include resolutions of disapproval, riders on appropriation acts, and stand-alone legislative proposals. Acts passed by the District of Columbia Council or approved by District voters that may be subject to congressional scrutiny during the 114 th Congress include a repeal of the Armstrong Amendment , a provision in the District's Human Rights Act that exempted religiously affiliated educational institutions from the requirement to not discriminate based on sexual orientation; provisions of the newly passed District of Columbia Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Amendment Act of 2014 (RHNDAA); the act, as passed by the Council, mandates that all employers in the District, religiously affiliated or otherwise, protect the "reproductive health rights" of their employees, even when the employer may have a religious or moral objection to services like abortion; a voter-approved initiative (Initiative 71) that decriminalizes possession and cultivation of small quantities of marijuana for personal use. In addition, Congress may consider a number of Member-initiated measures and oversight activities related to governance of the District of Columbia, including issues linked to home rule, municipal policing powers, and gun rights. This report discusses a number of District of Columbia issues and proposals that may be considered during the 114 th Congress, including legislative and budget autonomy, marijuana decriminalization, gun regulation, and issues of religious freedom and nondiscrimination. Each topic covered in this report includes a discussion of current legislative proposals and relevant policy questions. The United States Constitution gives Congress exclusive authority over the legislative affairs of the District of Columbia. Congress has exercised its constitutional authority in a number of ways, including imposing height limitation on buildings in the District in 1910 with the passage of the Height of Buildings Act. In 1973, Congress passed the District of Columbia Self-Government and Governmental Reorganization Act (Home Rule Act), granting the city's residents limited home rule. The act allowed for the popular election of a mayor and city council and authorized them to legislate and manage the city's affairs. It also established a budget and legislative review process allowing Congress to disapprove the implementation of any legislative measure passed by the city's elected leaders and to review the city's annual budget. Despite the passage of home rule legislation, Congress has continued to play an active role in District of Columbia governance. For example, in 1995 Congress passed legislation 1. encouraging the creation of charter schools; 2. authorizing the takeover of the management of city services and finances from the elected government leaders to a five-member presidentially appointed financial control board; and 3. creating the independent Office of the Chief Financial Officer. In 1997, with the passage of the National Capital Revitalization and Self-Government Improvement Act, Congress transferred a number of state-like functions from the District to the federal government in an effort to address a fiscal and management crisis confronting the city. The 1997 act transferred responsibility for funding prisons and courts and unfunded pension liabilities for the city's judges, police, firefighters, and teachers to the federal government. It also increased the share of the District's Medicaid cost borne by the federal government from 50% to 70%. In addition, up until 2010, Congress included provisions in annual appropriations acts for the District of Columbia that prohibited or restricted the use of public (District and federal) funds to support the city's efforts to gain voting representation in Congress. Another set of provisions additionally prohibited the District from providing any assistance to implement or fund particular initiatives and referenda approved by the city's voters or legislation passed by the city council. Congress also has enacted legislation without the consent of District voters, including authorizing the establishment of public charter schools and school vouchers. Congress may exercise its authority over the legislative affairs of the District through one of three means: a resolution of disapproval nullifying an act of the District of Columbia Council as outlined in the District's Home Rule Act; the use of riders attached to the District's operating budget which must be approved as part of the appropriations process; and authorizing acts introduced as stand-alone measures or attached to other legislation. The District of Columbia Self-Government and Governmental Reorganization Act, as amended (also known as the "Home Rule Act"), includes provisions establishing a special parliamentary mechanism by which Congress can disapprove laws enacted by the District of Columbia. Under Section 602(c) of the Home Rule Act, as amended, with few exceptions, the chairman of the District of Columbia Council (Council) must transmit a copy of each act passed by the Council and signed by the mayor, as well as enactments stemming from ballot initiatives or referendum, to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the Senate. (This transmission may occur when the law is enacted or at a later point.) The law in question will take effect upon the expiration of a specified "layover" (congressional review) period following the date the law was transmitted to Congress unless it is first overturned by a joint resolution of disapproval. The act establishes special "fast track" procedures that the House and Senate might use to consider such a disapproval resolution. The length of the congressional layover period for District of Columbia laws differs based on the type of law the District has enacted. Any law codified in Title 22 (Criminal Offenses and Penalties), 23 (Criminal Procedure), or 24 (Prisoners and Their Treatment) of the District of Columbia Code must lie over for 60 days before going into force. All other District laws become effective upon the expiration of a layover/congressional review period of 30 calendar days or upon the date prescribed by the act itself, whichever is later. In calculating this 30-calendar-day layover period, Saturdays, Sundays, federal holidays, and days on which neither the House nor the Senate is in session because of an adjournment sine die or pursuant to an adjournment resolution are excluded. Under the Home Rule Act, any Member of the House or Senate may introduce a qualifying joint resolution disapproving a law of the District of Columbia at any time after the law has been submitted to Congress and before the expiration of the layover periods described above. There is no limit on the number of resolutions that may be introduced. All joint resolutions, when introduced, are referred to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in the House and the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs in the Senate. Once a joint disapproval resolution is referred, a committee may choose to mark it up but may not report amendments to it. For those joint resolutions aimed at District of Columbia laws codified in the District of Columbia criminal code, a discharge mechanism is potentially available. For such acts, if a committee to which a disapproval resolution has been referred has not reported it within 20 calendar days after its introduction, a privileged motion to discharge the committee from the further consideration of it or any joint resolution aimed at the same District of Columbia law is in order. The motion to discharge is debatable for one hour, equally divided, and can be made only by an individual favoring the legislation. The motion is no longer available after the committee has reported a disapproval resolution with respect to the same District law. For enactments not affecting the District of Columbia criminal code, the committees would presumably have to report a joint resolution for it to reach the calendar. In both the House and Senate, once a committee has reported or (within the limits described above) been discharged from further consideration of a joint resolution, a non-debatable motion to proceed to consider the measure is in order and may be made by any Member. This motion to proceed may be made even if a previous motion to the same effect has been defeated. The motion to proceed may not be amended, nor may a vote on it be reconsidered. A motion to postpone the motion to proceed is in order but is not debatable. Should the House or Senate agree to consider by simple majority vote, the joint resolution would be pending before the respective chamber and debatable for up to 10 hours, equally divided. A non-debatable motion to limit debate below 10 hours is in order. The joint disapproval resolution may not be amended or recommitted, and a vote thereon may not be reconsidered. All appeals from decisions of the chair made during consideration of the joint resolution are to be decided without debate. Passage of a joint resolution is by simple majority vote. It appears that passage and presentment of a joint resolution of disapproval to the President must occur before the expiration of the layover period in order to invalidate that District law. Perhaps because the Home Rule Act mechanism was originally structured as a one- or two-house legislative veto, it does not include separate parliamentary procedures governing consideration of a joint resolution of approval or disapproval after its initial passage in its chamber of origin. Should a joint resolution of approval or disapproval pass the House and Senate but be vetoed by the President, any attempt to override that veto would take place under normal House and Senate procedures. In the Senate, vetoed measures are privileged for consideration (as they are in the House) but are fully debatable and thus potentially subject to a filibuster and the cloture process. It is worth noting that the Home Rule Act disapproval procedure has been used infrequently, and should the House or Senate choose to consider a disapproval resolution under its terms, the chambers will likely have to interpret for themselves how some of its facets operate in current parliamentary practice, a decision each will no doubt make in close consultation with that chamber's Parliamentarian.