DC-AL: 88-Year-Old House Democrat Says She's Running Again: 'I Am Not Going To Step Aside'

[RandySF]

Eighty-eight-year-old Democrat Eleanor Holmes Norton announced on Thursday that she would be seeking re-election in 2026 as a delegate to Congress from Washington, D.C. ,despite her advanced age.

Asked by Axios whether she would be seeking re-election despite growing concerns about her age, Norton – the oldest person in Congress – said, “Of course.”

“I say that my seniority is what is very important, and I am not going to step aside,” the non-voting member declared.

Eighty-year-old Rep. David Scott (D-GA) and 77-year-old Rep. John Larson (D-CT) also told Axios they were planning to run for re-election, despite concerns over their health.



https://www.mediaite.com/politics/88-year-old-house-democrat-says-shes-running-again-i-am-not-going-to-step-aside/

[enough]

1. What is this mania for never leaving office?

[marble falls]

5. It's a problem for us aging folks. We do not see objectively how we are losing ability every day. I have to be ...

... slapped by reality almost daily.

[EdmondDantes_]

9. I get that there is the lure of power, and the job's effort is a little fungible

Yes being a member of Congress is work, but I imagine there's a lot of variance in terms of what the staff does and what the member does. It's certainly not doing physical labor and some people enjoy meetings (those people are objectively wrong of course 😄 .

But don't they want to enjoy a retirement with friends and family? My parents are tired of working and actively planning their upcoming retirement.

[marble falls]

39. My wife snickers everytime I look for a job. Ain't no way I can work like that anymore, but being home brings ...

... home how useless I am while I know I've got some good mileage left in spite of serious health set backs. I am planning to do volunteer for a meals on wheels kitchen when this latest health setback is righted. I can hear my wife's eyeballs rolling right now.

We worked hard and can't believe we're crossing the cusp of extremely useful to fairly useless. I can see where this is so tough for progressive legislators, as opposed to crooked RWs who have go to the grave keeping all the balls in the air.

[EdmondDantes_]

42. I would definitely say it's not useless

My grandfather ran his local meals on wheels after retiring. My stepdad is already driving blood for the Red Cross. I see lots of retirees volunteering at the food donation place I volunteer for. My aunt volunteers as case worker or advocate for kids in the CPS system.

I look at it as getting to relax after working hard for a lot of years and chipping in some where you can. Taking a step back doesn't mean useless, but for many people there is an association of monetary value or work equalling value. It can be a really rough transition.

[marble falls]

45. I honestly don't care about money itself, I only use it to tally my points.

[ProfessorGAC]

30. My Hobbies Remind Me

I can't hit the ball as far in golf.
My hands don't move as fast or as accurately on piano or guitar.
When I sub, my feet bother me & my legs are tired, and all I did was walk slowly around the room.
Every day I have clear indicators that I'm not physically what I used to be.

[marble falls]

34. My big one was when I realized what I would estimate for a job was no longer accurate. By a mile. That after ...

... doing a show, it took more than a week to recuperate. How easy it was to skip a step and move blithely on.

[Blue Full Moon]

43. Arrogance

[Arazi]

2. Gawd forbid Dems allow in any young superstars

Nadler stands in stark relief stepping aside BEFORE HE’S 80!

Ffs

[Scrivener7]

3. That's just ridiculous. Hope they're primaried.

[marble falls]

4. Absolutely, they need to be primaried. and it's nothing personal.

[Scrivener7]

6. No. Nothing personal. And a lesson we seem to need to learn over and over and over.

[LeftInTX]

7. Maxine Waters is only a year younger. Congresswoman Norton is also black.

This call to get rid of all old people in congress is getting ridiculous. Maybe because she's from a red state?

[EdmondDantes_]

10. Norton isn't from a red state

She's the non-voting representative from DC. I think the AL is for at large?

[LeftInTX]

11. So we're bashing a non-voting rep just because

She's old. Got it@

Gosh, the pitchforks are out! Just say "old" and everyone piles on, even though she's a non-voting member.

[maxsolomon]

13. There's old and there's OLD.

Late 80's is OLD. Most people who are 88 are dead.

[Celerity]

16. It is not based simply on her age. It is more like a Feinstein situation.

D.C.'s Stalwart in Congress Clings to Her Seat Amid Signs of Decline

Colleagues and friends say Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia’s 87-year-old (now 88) nonvoting delegate and a veteran of fights over home rule, is struggling to do her job.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/us/politics/eleanor-norton-age-congress-dc.html

https://archive.ph/jzBz1

June 11, 2025

When Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, the Democrat and nonvoting delegate for Washington, D.C., attended a recent gala to accept an award honoring her decades-long career in Congress, she appeared to be struggling to read her brief remarks. Standing onstage at Arena Stage in April, Ms. Norton referred to the “National Environment for the Arts,” lauded the D.C. theater for contributions to “freedom of suppression and democracy” and half-said, half-spelled the name of a former board chair, Beth Newburger Schwartz, as “Ethel N-E-W Burger Schwartz.” A pall fell over the audience as Ms. Norton stumbled through her speech, according to an attendee.

The scene, which was reported earlier by Washingtonian magazine, was all the more jarring because it followed a video montage celebrating Ms. Norton’s many achievements through her three decades in public office, the attendee said. It served as a vivid reminder of what colleagues and friends said has been a notable decline for Ms. Norton — the civil rights leader and law professor turned congresswoman known as D.C.’s “warrior on the Hill” — that has quieted her voice, leaving her vastly diminished and struggling to fulfill her congressional duties.

More than half a dozen of them spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid publicly disparaging her, though some for years have privately pressed Ms. Norton to reckon with her diminution and decide against seeking re-election. That message doesn’t appear to have sunk in. “I’m going to run,” she told reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday, after being questioned about a recent Washington Post report in which D.C. council members raised questions about her ability to do the job and said it was time for her to retire. “I don’t know why anybody would even ask me.”

The reasons are obvious to those who have watched her closely on Capitol Hill. Ms. Norton, who will turn 88 this week, is the oldest member of the House and has become frail. In hearings, she often sits quiet and alone, sometimes relying on staff aides to remind her where she is. (Ms. Norton’s office strongly disputed that aides had ever had to do that.) She rarely attends meetings of the Oversight Committee ahead of votes, as members are encouraged to do, instead joining remotely by phone. She sometimes does not seem to recognize people she has known for years.

snip

[LeftInTX]

28. She's not a voting member!

She's at-large from DC.

[Celerity]

35. I never said she was a full voting member, but she can introduce/sponsor legislation and before the Rethugs took it away

each time they took the House back, she (as the DC delegate at-large) could vote on amendments, procedural issues, and non-binding resolutions. She also has franking privileges, floor privileges and can participate in certain other House functions. Non-voting members may, as I stated above, also introduce legislation and may vote in a House committee of which they are a member.

Republican-led Congress denies D.C. delegate a vote. Again.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/republican-congress-denies-dc-representative-a-vote-again/2017/01/03/a8e32760-d1c8-11e6-945a-76f69a399dd5_story.html

https://archive.ph/Gsem5

On the first day of the 115th Congress, members buzzed Tuesday about the repeal of President Obama's health-care law, tax reform and whether to gut the ethics office. All Eleanor Holmes Norton wanted to discuss was a vote. And a symbolic one at that. For the fourth consecutive session, Norton (D), the non­voting D.C. representative, formally asked the speaker of the House for the ability to vote on amendments and procedural issues. Again, she was thwarted.

This time, she brought D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) and a veterans advocate with her. Norton pushed for a vote in the Committee of the Whole as “a down payment on full voting rights for the more than 680,000 American citizens residing in the District of Columbia, who pay the highest federal income taxes per capita in the United States and have fought and died in every American war, yet have no vote on the floor of the House of Representatives, ‘the people’s house,’ ” she said.

When Democrats have controlled the House, Norton, the other non­voting delegates — from American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the Virgin Islands — and Puerto Rico’s resident commissioner were given the courtesy. In Norton’s quarter-century of service, that has happened in congressional sessions starting in 1993, 2007 and 2009. The privilege was revoked each time Republicans took back control of the House.

For Norton, the ability to cast a vote as part of the Committee of the Whole is largely symbolic — it would allow her to vote on amendments on the House floor but not on final legislation. And, in the past, if a vote by a delegate would determine the outcome of a particular measure, the House voted again — without them.

snip

[Scrivener7]

18. Gosh, thanks for giving us your opinion about primaries.

No matter what, we mustn't consider change. We mustn't suggest we can do better. Because everything is going just fine.

[LeftInTX]

23. She"s not even a voting member.

She represents DC. If her constituents feel she is doing a good job, then why not?

[PeaceWave]

24. Change based on what? Just her age? If she is performing her job and liked by her constituents, then what is the issue?

[awesomerwb1]

48. For those who ask why replace her?

We have lost a couple or 3 seats recently due to illness/death. That's why.

She's 88, going to be 89 next year. Enough. Get some new blood in. It's unbelievable to me we're even arguing over this.

[RandySF]

31. Correct.

[Arazi]

20. Oh ffs, this isn't racist. It's about getting younger Dems inside the legislature

And getting experience.

DiFi needed to go 10 years before she died in office. Adam Schiff has been BADASS in her place and Laura Friedman who took his seat is 58 yrs old. That’s generational change that has nothing to do with race.

Steny Hoyer, Chuck Schumer, Bill Pascrell, and yes even Maxine Waters and Bernie need to step aside and mentor younger Dems.

[democratsruletheday]

8. YES....

couldn't agree more. Primary their old azzes. I"m 60 and would have reservations about running for office. 70's and 80's? GTFO here with that BS. Selfish and greedy at the bare minimum

[Nanjeanne]

12. Asking that an 88 year old make room for a younger representative is certainly not bashing. Or ageism. Or anything

more than a wish that Democrats with age and experience would mentor young people, encourage young people, and step aside for young people who have a very large stake in the future of this country.

[maxsolomon]

14. She is a NON-VOTING member.

It's doesn't matter if she's dead; she has no power.

[betsuni]

15. 11 members of Congress over 80 spun into an evil centrist establishment crypt keeper majority status quo

plotting and scheming to hold back the brave and noble Youth who apparently spinelessly cave without fighting or standing up to meet the moment (come on, the old guard can't move very fast, forgets everything, can only eat soft foods -- how hard can it be?).

[PeaceWave]

17. A whole lotta mean spirited ageism going on here...

If the voters in her district feel that she is capable of representing them, then it is their right to retain her services - regardless of her age. The act of denying a person access to the full spectrum of rights afforded to all adult Americans due solely to their age isn't just illegal, it's immoral. Conflating physical frailty with mental incapacity is straight up discrimination, essentially saying "Your skin is thinner or more wrinkled than mine. Therefore you are a different and thus lesser person." An act of making the elderly the "Other." That's not who we are as Americans. Now, if you want to talk about annual checkups to ensure that all of our elected representatives are mentally up to the challenge of their respective offices, that is fair. But, if you want to simply draw a line in the sand based on age, then you're treading into the same kind of discriminatory waters that Republicans are currently immersing themselves in.

[Scrivener7]

19. Said no one here ever. But thanks for the amusing straw man.

[PeaceWave]

21. The straw man actually arises from conflating age with mental incapacity to perform the job.

[Quiet Em]

22. Neither David Hogg's Leaders We Deserve nor Bernie Sander's Run For Something

have recruited anyone to run for her seat. I don't see the point of writing an article complaining about her age without offering an alternative.

[valleyrogue]

32. Ageism isn't becoming at all. n/t

[Arazi]

25. Schumer wants 79 yr old Janet Mills to be the ME Senate candidate

She’d start being a senator for a 6 year term at almost 80 years old! Iirc, she never polled higher than 2-3 points in popularity over GOP candidates as Governor. Schumer banking on name recognition instead of what the voters want - fighters.

This is nuts!

We need to start getting younger Dems in office

[PeaceWave]

26. You don't think older folks can fight the legislative fight? Based on what are you saying this?

[Arazi]

38. We NEED to raise up the next generation

That’s not ageism, it’s reality. You seem to be saying younger Dems shouldn’t be empowered. Ever. We should always defer to the senior elders

We desperately need our next leaders inside to gain experience but they can’t do that if old folks refuse to allow that.

It’s madness to persist on this track. Dems don’t have a million liberal think tanks or conservative conferences or media outlets to groom future legislators like the GOP does.

[themaguffin]

27. This thing about never leaving office is not honorable. It's selfish and counterproductive.

[PeaceWave]

29. The opposite is likely true, with more legislation being written and passed by more experienced representatives.

[themaguffin]

33. I didn't say anything about experienced members. I am referring specifically to situations like this.

two very different things.

[PeaceWave]

37. Situations like what? Nobody has offered a legitimate reason why this representative can't perform her job.

[themaguffin]

40. Seriously? Really? Just say that you think that it's fine that 80 somethings are in office, but act like it's

not concerning - not to mention for most areas of work, people retire at a younger age and it's important to let go and hand it off.

There are plenty of experienced politicians in their 40, 50, 60s. etc.

Come on.

[PeaceWave]

41. It is absolutely fine that 80 somethings are in office or doing any other kind of work for that matter...

Now, since I have answered your question. Answer this - WHY are you "concerned" about this elected representative's age. Specifically, not simply with a vague suggestion that age by itself implies inability to function. And, while you're at it, answer this as well. Why is the focus here that this representative voluntarily give up their office? If someone younger wants the job, there is nothing preventing them from attempting to take it away - at the ballot box.

[themaguffin]

44. Concern is legitimate. We've seen issues. We know. My parents are in their 80s. I see the limitations. Come on.

If someone younger wants the job, there is nothing preventing them from attempting to take it away - at the ballot box.

Of course, but that's not what I was referring to. This is gross, but you do you.

[Arazi]

46. lol, anyone even whispering that an incumbent Dem get primaried gets crucified here

And out in RL.

It’s been a steady hum, a growing undercurrent of discontent ever since it was first suggested, even for safe blue Districts, that always gets swatted down with feigned shock.

How dare anyone suggest such a thing?11!!1?

*** cough David Hogg***

As for specifics on this person, see post #16. She’s DiFi all over again…

[Renew Deal]

36. She's non-voting, so it doesn't matter much

[Autumn]

47. For some it's all about the ego.

I'm all for a required retirement age.

[MineralMan]

49. As a House member from the District of Columbia, she cannot vote on House measures.

So, unless she's a very effective speaker, what she does really makes no difference, really.

I'm not bothered.