Lisa Murkowski

Lisa Murkowski has served in the U.S. Senate for Alaska since 2002. Murkowski was the first elected Alaska-born senator and first woman to represent Alaska in the Senate.

Murkowski was born May 22, 1957, in Ketchikan, Alaska. Her father is former U.S. senator and governor of Alaska Frank Murkowski. She graduated from Georgetown University in 1980 with a Bachelor of Arts in economics and from Willamette University in 1985 with a Juris Doctor. Prior to her political career, Murkowski was an Anchorage District Court attorney from 1987-1989 and a private practice attorney from 1989-1996. She served on the Mayor's Task Force on the Homeless from 1990-1991 and on the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission from 1997-1998.

Murkowski served in the Alaska State house of representatives from 1999-2002. She was appointed to the U.S. Senate in 2002 by her father, who had resigned the seat to become the governor of Alaska. She completed her father's unexpired term, then ran for and won a full term in 2004. She ran for a second term in 2010 but lost the Republican Party nomination to Tea Party candidate Joe Miller. She then ran as a write-in candidate and defeated both Miller and Democrat Scott McAdams in the general election.

For information on Murkowski's policy subject areas, committee appointments and sponsored/co-sponsored legislation in the U.S. Senate, please visit her profile on https://www.congress.gov.

Sources:

Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (n.d.). Murkowski, Lisa (1957-). Retrieved on May 6, 2020, from https://bioguideretro.congress.gov/Home/MemberDetails?memIndex=M001153.

Murkowski, L. (n.d.) About Lisa. Retrieved on May 11, 2020, from https://www.murkowski.senate.gov/about-lisa.