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 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 duties as a member of Congress. 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….