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Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton

Representative for the District of Columbia’s At-Large District

pronounced EL-uh-ner // NAWR-tun

Norton is the representative from the District of Columbia and is a Democrat. She has served since Jan 3, 1991. Norton is next up for reelection in 2024 and serves until Jan 3, 2025. She is 86 years old.

Because the District of Columbia is a territory of the United States, and not a state, its representative in the House of Representatives is a delegate with limited voting privileges — Norton can currently vote in committee and in certain votes on the House floor, but not if their vote would be decisive. Delegates have a marginalized role in Congress and their constituents are not represented in Congress in the same manner as most citizens.

Photo of Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton [D-DC]

Earmarks

Norton proposed $49 million in earmarks for fiscal year 2024, including:

  • $12 million to House of Ruth for “House of Ruth’s Affordable Housing for Survivors of Domestic Violence and Homelessness: Construction of 40 affordable housing units in Ward 7, “at the intersection of Branch Avenue, Pennsylvania Avenue, and O Street.””
  • $8 million to BREAD FOR THE CITY INC for “Bread for the City”
  • $6 million to Faunteroy Community Enrichment Center for “Faunteroy Community Enrichment Center”

These are earmark requests which may or may not survive the legislative process to becoming law. Most representatives from both parties requested earmarks for fiscal year 2024. Across representatives who requested earmarks, the median total amount requested for this fiscal year was $39 million.

Earmarks are federal expenditures, tax benefits, or tariff benefits requested by a legislator for a specific entity. Rather than being distributed through a formula or competitive process administered by the executive branch, earmarks may direct spending where it is most needed for the legislator's district. All earmark requests in the House of Representatives are published online for the public to review. We don’t have earmark requests for senators. The fiscal year begins on October 1 of the prior calendar year. Source: Appropriations.house.gov. Background: Earmark Disclosure Rules in the House

Analysis

Legislative Metrics

Read our 2022 Report Card for Norton.

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Norton is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot is a member of the House of Representatives positioned according to our ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).

The chart is based on the bills Norton has sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2019 to Sep 20, 2023. See full analysis methodology.

Committee Membership

Eleanor Holmes Norton sits on the following committees:

Enacted Legislation

Norton was the primary sponsor of 41 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

View All »

Does 41 not sound like a lot? Very few bills are ever enacted — most legislators sponsor only a handful that are signed into law. But there are other legislative activities that we don’t track that are also important, including offering amendments, committee work and oversight of the other branches, and constituent services.

We consider a bill enacted if one of the following is true: a) it is enacted itself, b) it has a companion bill in the other chamber (as identified by Congress) which was enacted, or c) if at least about half of its provisions were incorporated into bills that were enacted (as determined by an automated text analysis, applicable beginning with bills in the 110th Congress).

Bills Sponsored

Issue Areas

Norton sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:

Government Operations and Politics (46%) Crime and Law Enforcement (12%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (9%) Law (8%) Labor and Employment (7%) Arts, Culture, Religion (7%) Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues (6%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Norton recently introduced the following legislation:

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

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Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Feb 1993 to Jul 2023, Norton missed 132 of 1,723 roll call votes, which is 7.7%. This is much worse than the median of 1.7% among the lifetime records of representatives currently serving. The chart below reports missed votes over time.

We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses, major life events, and running for higher office.

Show the numbers...

Primary Sources

The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including: