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.

At intervals between the unscripted sparring, Ms. Norton would be recognized by Representative James R. Comer of Kentucky, the Republican chairman of the panel, and read gingerly from prepared remarks.

Even then, she often stumbled and sounded as if she was not following the meaning of what she said, emphasizing words that did not make sense to emphasize and saying “close quote” while reading from the sheet of paper in front of her.

It was a fresh reminder of Ms. Norton’s frailty and limitations at a critical moment for her city, as President Trump’s push to exert control over the District has posed one of the biggest threats to its self-governance since it was granted limited home rule by Congress in 1973.

Ms. Norton’s decline is too obvious to be ignored even by her colleagues, some of whom have tried to nudge her toward retirement. But Ms. Norton, the oldest member of the House, continues to insist that she is running for re-election for what would be her 19th term.

It is not the decision that most Democrats are hoping for. Some of her closest friends and advisers have urged her to step down after her term ends in 2027. Her colleagues have tried to gently suggest it is time to go.

“Eleanor is an icon who brought the spirit of the civil rights movement from the 20th century into the 21st, but it’s going to take a new generation of leadership to win statehood and the battles of the day,” Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, said in an interview with The New York Times in June.

On Wednesday, some Democratic lawmakers and their staff members could be seen texting during the hearing, describing the situation as “elder abuse” and bemoaning the fact that Ms. Norton appeared to repeat large portions of her prepared remarks during the debate on multiple bills.

Some of Ms. Norton’s colleagues went out of their way to praise her participation. Representative Wesley Bell, Democrat of Missouri, acknowledged Ms. Norton, noting that she delivered an “eloquent argument” in opposing a bill that would increase congressional authority over D.C.

And a bill sponsored by Ms. Norton, which would modernize the way D.C. legislation is sent to Congress by allowing electronic transmission, was the one thing that everyone in the contentious session agreed on. It was approved by the committee with bipartisan support.

But for the most part, the debate occurred around her and without her, her small figure sometimes seeming to disappear completely behind the imposing dais.

Ms. Norton, a civil rights leader turned congresswoman and once known as D.C.’s “warrior on the Hill,” has been notably absent since Mr. Trump has attempted a federal takeover of the city she represents.

On the day the president took control of D.C.’s police force and appeared in the White House briefing room to announce he was deploying the National Guard onto the city’s streets, Ms. Norton put out a written statement but did not appear in public at all.

Her absence has been so notable that her office issued a news release before the hearing on Wednesday announcing that Ms. Norton would speak on all 14 bills the committee was considering.

Still, there were reminders on Wednesday of the force of nature she once was.

When Ms. Norton took a brief break in the afternoon, a man named Leon Richardson approached her in the hallway to thank her for her service to the city. Ms. Norton, who was leaning on the arm of an aide, nodded blankly and thanked him. But she did not engage more and she appeared confused as to why he had approached her.

It was Representative Kweisi Mfume, Democrat of Maryland, who piped up to offer the historical perspective that someone with Ms. Norton’s seniority and deep experience in serving the District might have otherwise been expected to.

During the session, Mr. Mfume, 76, spoke off the cuff about meeting with President Ronald Reagan in 1987 to discuss home rule, an era so far in the past that he described it as “a time when dinosaurs ruled this earth.”

“I have voted for every pro-D.C. act here in the Congress since 1987,” Mr. Mfume said, “so I’ve got a long telescope of what’s been happening and what’s not been happening.”

Ms. Norton said nothing.