Norton, Eleanor Holmes

Eleanor Holmes Norton is an American politician, lawyer, and human rights activist who has represented the District of Columbia in the House of Representatives since 1991 as a member of the Democratic Party. She is the Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, which oversees national surface transportation policy, highway and transit facility development, and safety programs. She serves on the Committee on Oversight and Reform and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. As ranking member of the minority party on her subcommittee, Norton shapes the Democratic response to transportation policy and leads oversight efforts on the subcommittee's jurisdiction.\n\nNorton came to Congress as a national figure who had been a civil rights and feminist leader, tenured professor of law, and board member at three Fortune 500 companies. From 1977 to 1981, she was the first female chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In 1965, she became the assistant legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, a position she held until 1970. In 1970, Mayor John Lindsay appointed her as the head of the New York City Human Rights Commission, and she held the first hearings in the country on discrimination against women. In 1982 Norton became a professor at Georgetown University Law Center; she retired as professor emerita in 2018.\n\nPrior to serving in Congress, Norton organized for Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the civil rights movement. Norton specialized in freedom of speech cases, and her work included successfully arguing Carroll v. President & Commissioners of Princess Anne, a Supreme Court case brought on behalf of the white supremacist National States' Rights Party.