Norton Says Little as Bills to Clamp Down on D.C. Advance

Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, the Democrat and nonvoting delegate for Washington, D.C., sat mostly silent on Wednesday at a fiery meeting of the Oversight Committee where lawmakers clashed over legislation that would impose more federal control over her city.

It was just the type of setting where Ms. Norton, once an unstoppable and ubiquitous force in Washington, used to advocate forcefully for the District, dominating any discussion that touched on the issues of D.C. statehood and infringement on home rule.

Instead, the session on Wednesday, which ended with Republicans pushing through the clampdown bills over unanimous Democratic opposition, became a stage that showcased Ms. Norton’s decline.

The 88-year-old congresswoman was escorted into the hearing room by a staff member who held her by the arm and helped her to her seat on the dais, where she sat alone reading a newspaper until the proceedings began. When recognized, she read haltingly from a script that it appeared she sometimes did not understand.

And throughout the daylong meeting, Ms. Norton did not once jump in to participate in the often heated back-and-forth between Democrats and Republicans debating the defining issues of her career: D.C. statehood and the District’s autonomy when it comes to public safety and the criminal justice system.

Instead, it was Representative Maxwell Frost, the 28-year-old Democrat from Florida, who made the most waves when he got into a heated argument with Representative Clay Higgins, Republican of Louisiana, pressing him on why he supported states’ rights for his own state but not for Washington, D.C.