Kirsten Gillibrand
 Kirsten Gillibrand          (politician, US/2020 Presidential election/Candidate) | |||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
.jpg) | |||||||||||||||||||
| Born | Kirsten Elizabeth Rutnik 1966-12-09 Albany, New York, U.S. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Nationality | US | ||||||||||||||||||
| Alma mater | Dartmouth College, University of California (Los Angeles) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Religion | Roman Catholicism | ||||||||||||||||||
| Children | 2 sons | ||||||||||||||||||
| Spouse | Jonathan Gillibrand | ||||||||||||||||||
| Party | Democratic | ||||||||||||||||||
Replaced Hillary Clinton's seat as Senator from New York.
| |||||||||||||||||||
Kirsten Elizabeth Gillibrand (née Rutnik);[1] is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States Senator from New York since 2009. A member of the Democratic Party, she served as member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2007 to 2009.
Born and raised in upstate New York, where her grandmother Polly Noonan was the gray eminence of Albany politics for decades[2]. Gillibrand graduated from Dartmouth College and from the UCLA School of Law. During the Bill Clinton presidency, she was an advisor to Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Andrew Cuomo. She then worked as a lawyer in the law firms of Davis Polk & Wardwell and Boies, Schiller & Flexner. Tobacco company Philip Morris was one of her clients.
She worked on Hillary Clinton's 2000 U.S. Senate campaign. Gillibrand was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 2006. She represented New York's 20th congressional district and was reelected in 2008. During her House tenure, Gillibrand was noted for voting against the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.
After Clinton was appointed U.S. Secretary of State in 2009, Governor David Paterson selected Gillibrand to fill the Senate seat Clinton had vacated, making her New York's second female Senator. Gillibrand won a special election in 2010 to keep the seat, and was reelected to full terms in i2012 and 2018. She has been outspoken on sexual assault in the military and sexual harassment, having criticized President Bill Clinton, Senator Al Franken, and Governor Andrew Cuomo, all fellow Democrats, for alleged sexual misconduct. She supports paid family leave, a federal jobs guarantee, and the abolition and replacement of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Gillibrand ran for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in 2020, officially announcing her candidacy on March 17, 2019. After failing to qualify for the third debate, she withdrew from the race on August 28, 2019.
Gillibrand dissented from giving a waiver to retired marine general James Mattis, allowing him to be appointed US Secretary of Defense, arguing that the military should be under civilian control.[3]
