The present invention is a latching electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection circuit that enables and latches an ESD clamping circuit upon an ESD event, and disables and un-latches the ESD clamping circuit upon either a drop in the DC supply voltage below a defined threshold or a time-out. The time-out protects against effects of inadvertent latching or any anomaly in which the latching ESD clamping circuit does not un-latch. An ESD event is a voltage spike between the DC supply voltage and ground wherein the ESD clamping circuit applies a low impedance between the DC supply voltage and ground to dissipate the energy contained in the voltage spike, thereby protecting adjacent circuitry.