Your Independent Journal from the Heartland
“With fire in my soul and the facts on my side, I’ve raised hell about the injustice of denying 700K taxpaying Americans in DC – the same rights given to residents of the states…” — Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC)
Eleanor Holmes Norton is retiring and we’re all the worse for it. In a statement issued in late January, the venerable nonvoting U.S. delegate from the District of Columbia announced she will not be seeking an 18th term.
Norton will leave office at 88, the oldest serving member of the lower house. After initially filing for the upcoming midterms, she reportedly withdrew over concerns about cognitive decline.
Over the course of a three decades battle for D.C. statehood and representation, fully two generations of Washingtonians came of age with Norton as their staunch advocate — that’s six presidents, eight speakers of the House, and more Trump sycophants than decency should allow.
Norton is a native Washingtonian and early on activist for civil rights, feminism and free speech. She earned degrees from Antioch College, Yale and Yale Law School followed by stints with the ACLU, NYU Law School and New York City Human Rights Commission.
Aides inside the Carter administration took note of Norton’s work and reputation for tenacity, and in 1977 appointed her the first female chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She eventually left the EEOC to return to Washington, where she taught law school and continued her activism.
With strong support within and without the District, in 1990 Norton took the delegate’s chair and has held it ever since.
Although never relenting in the quest for full statehood and representation, Norton has by sheer force and strong alliances influenced multitudes of bills on which she couldn’t vote. From multilateral nuclear disarmament to reproductive freedom, she has put forth informed progressive positions on some of the most crucial pieces of legislation of our time.
Norton’s ability to make rational cases in irrational times will be sorely missed; but likewise her first-person activism, fire in the belly and zero tolerance for self-serving bullies.
We owe her thanks for a race well run.
Don Rollins is a Unitarian Universalist minister in Port Townsend, Wash. Email donaldlrollins@gmail.com.
