It’s been three days since D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton‘s campaign filed paperwork indicating that she would not be seeking reelection this year — but we still have no official statement from Norton herself, her congressional office or her campaign.
News4 broke the story last week that Norton was unlikely to seek reelection.
Norton, 88, is the oldest member of Congress and has made no recent public statements on her future.
She has represented the District of Columbia in Congress since the early 1990s. Prior to that, she was a national leader in the civil rights movement.
No official announcement has come from her office or from her campaign. But on Friday, her campaign filed a notice with the Federal Elections Commission notifying the agency that they were disbanding her official campaign.
Sources told News4 last week that no one from her campaign planned to pick up a petition to get her on the ballot for the upcoming primary.
News4 reached out to Norton, her congressional office and her campaign but has not heard back from any of them.
Despite Norton’s lack of an official announcement, politicians, local leaders and organizations began issuing statements congratulating her on her long career.
Those include organizations such as DC Vote, Metro General Manager Randy Clarke and people who hope to replace her, including Robert White and Brooke Pinto.
On Sunday, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser put out a video on social media highlighting Norton’s contributions.
“I’m just thinking about her 35 years of service to D.C. residents,” Bowser said. “She has been responsible for delivery a lot of land, jobs, economic opportunities for D.C., and she’s managed to do all that without a vote. Imagine what she could have done for us as a voting member of the Congress.”
She called Norton “our warrior on the Hill.”
“She’s an icon of the civil rights movement, a brilliant legal scholar who was a Georgetown professor for many years,” Bowser said.
It remains unclear what role Norton actually played, if any, in this decision to end her political career.
Over the past year, her health has visibly declined and questions have been raised about her ability to continue in office. Even her closest and most noted advisor Donna Brazile called for Norton to retire.
Sources close to Norton have told News4 to expect some type of statement, possibly a video statement, from Norton sometime soon.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
