Eleanor Holmes Norton
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U.S. Delegate
for the District of Columbia
Eleanor Holmes Norton (born June 13, 1937) is the non-voting Delegate from the District of Columbia to the United States House of Representatives. She was born in Washington, D.C., and attended Antioch College, Yale University and Yale University Law School.
Norton worked as a lawyer in private practice, then became a law clerk to Federal District Court Judge Leon Higginbotham. She became an assistant legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, adjunct assistant professor at New York Uinversity Law School, executive assistant to the Mayor of New York, chair of the New York City Commission on Human Rights, Chairwoman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a senior fellow of the Urban Institute and a professor at Georgetown University Law Center.
Norton was elected in 1990 as a Democratic non-voting delegate to the House, and began her still-continuing service on January 3, 1991. However, as a Delegate instead of a full Representative, she is not permitted a legislative vote under the present rules. She may speak only on behalf of the District and vote only in committee, not on the House floor. The District of Columbia, like the other four U.S. territories represented in Congress, has only this partial representation in the House, and has none at all in the U.S. Senate.
