Contrary to some depictions of her story, Barbara Gordon had actually quit being Batgirl to become elected as a congresswoman some time before the events of the Killing Joke, where she successful ran on a platform of penal reform and helping out the people in Gotham’s poorest areas.
As is seen with the reaction to some of the new folks elected to Congress recently, the older, more established politicians aren’t exactly down with Barbara “intruding“ on their racket and use tactics such as voter suppression to keep Gotham’s status quo the way it is/was.
Amusingly, pre-Crisis on Infinite Earth’s Barbara’s stint in government is actually something that she has in common with another famous New England–based female crimefighter, Jessica Fletcher, the protagonist of long-running mystery show Murder, She Wrote.
In the episode Capitol Offence, Fletcher is temporarily Maine’s representative in the House of Representative after the previously elected person died of a heart attack.
