1 of 5 | Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., on Tuesday announced her retirement from the House of Representatives at the end of her current term. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton will retire from Congress after serving the people of Washington, D.C., since 1991, she announced Tuesday.
Norton, 88, is a Democrat who has represented the nation’s capital in the House of Representatives for 35 years and is its lone voice in Congress.
She called her time in Congress a “privilege” and said she never wavered in her commitment to represent her constituents.
“Time and again, D.C. residents entrusted me to fight for them at the federal level, and I have not yielded,” Norton said in a news release announcing her retirement.
“With fire in my soul and the facts on my side, I have raised hell about the injustice of denying 700,000 taxpaying Americans the same rights given to residents of the states for 35 years.”
The delegate said the time has come for her to step aside and let a younger person represent the District of Columbia.
“The privilege of public service is inseparable from the responsibility to recognize when it’s time to lift up the next generation of leaders. For D.C., that time has come,” Norton said.
“With pride in all we have accomplished together, with the deepest gratitude to the people of D.C., and with great confidence in the next generation, I announced today that I will retire at the end of this term.”
Norton described herself as a “civil rights leader” who helped organize the 1963 March on Washington that was led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
She also was an attorney who argued and won cases before the Supreme Court, the first woman to lead the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and a tenured law professor at Georgetown University before being elected to Congress.
Norton cited federal funding for local improvements, transferring RFK Stadium to the capital and establishing the D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant program among her top legislative accomplishments.
The delegate said she will serve until the end of her term this year and will focus on serving the District of Columbia after leaving office.
The capital does not have any Senate representation, and its lone congressional seat has limited voting privileges.
