Category: State Senator

Staci Appel
Staci Appel


Staci Appel served in the Iowa state Senate from 2007 to 2011. She was the 2014 Democratic nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives seat held by retiring Republican Senator Tom Latham, but lost to David Young in the general election. Appel was born April 19, 1966 in Waterloo, Iowa and grew up in Iowa City, Iowa. She is married to Iowa Supreme Court Justice Brent R. Appel. Appel worked as a financial consultant with Merrill Lynch and UBS Paine Webber. Appel was elected to the Iowa state Senate in […]
Michele Bachmann
Michele M Bachmann


Michele Bachmann represented Minnesota's 6th District in the United States House of Representatives from 2007 to 2015. She was the first Republican woman to represent Minnesota in Congress. Bachmann was born April 6, 1956, in Waterloo, Iowa. In 1968, Bachmann's family moved to Minnesota. In 1978, Bachmann graduated from Winona State University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and English. In 1986, she received her Juris Doctorate from Coburn School of Law at Oral Roberts University. In 1988, she completed her L.L.M. in tax law at the […]
Nancy Kassebaum Baker
Nancy Kassebaum Baker


Nancy Landon Kassebaum Baker represented Kansas in the U.S. Senate from 1978 to 1997. She was the first woman to represent Kansas in the U.S. Senate and the first woman to chair a major U.S. Senate committee (Labor and Human Resources). Baker was born in Topeka, Kansas, on July 29, 1932. Her father was Alf Landon, governor of Kansas from 1933 to 1937 and the 1936 Republican nominee for president. She graduated from the University of Kansas in Lawrence with a B.A. in political science in 1954 and received a […]
Becca Balint
Becca Balint


Becca Balint has represented Vermont’s at-large congressional district since 2023. Balint is the first woman and openly LGBTQ person to represent Vermont in the U.S. House of Representatives. Balint was born in Heidelberg, Germany, at a U.S. Army hospital. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Smith College before earning a master’s degree in education from Harvard University in 1995. Balint also obtained a master’s degree in history from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 2001. Prior to entering the political realm, she worked in education, teaching at public and […]
Shenna Bellows
Shenna Bellows


Shenna Bellows assumed office as Maine’s first female secretary of state on January 4, 2020. Bellows was born on March 23, 1975, in Greenfield, Mass. She graduated magna cum laude from Middlebury College in 1997, where she received highest honors for a thesis in economic and environmental sustainability. Bellows worked as a research associate at Economists Incorporated from 1997 to 1999, then served in the Peace Corps in Panama as a small-business development volunteer. She was then an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer in Nashville, Tenn., assisting a startup non-profit develop a […]
Stephanie Bice
Stephanie Bice


Stephanie Bice has served as the U.S. representative for Oklahoma's 5th congressional district since 2021. Bice was born on November 11, 1973, in in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She received a Bachelor of Science in marketing from Oklahoma State University in 1995. After college, she worked eight years for her family's technology company, and then was vice president of business development at a digital marketing company. Bice served in the Oklahoma State Senate from 2014-2021. Sources: Ballotpedia (n.d.). Stephanie Bice. Retrieved on Nov. 18, 2020, from https://ballotpedia.org/Stephanie_Bice. Stephanie Bice for Congress. […]
Suzanne Bonamici
Suzanne Bonamici


Suzanne Bonamici has represented Oregon's 1st Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives since February 7, 2012. Born October 14, 1954, Bonamici grew up in Michigan and moved to Oregon in the mid-1970s. She earned an A.A. from Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon, and a B.A. in journalism from the University of Oregon. In 1983, she received her J.D. from the University of Oregon School Of Law. During college and law school, she worked at Lane County Legal Aid Service. After law school, Bonamici was an attorney for […]
Terri Bonoff
Terri Bonoff


Terri Bonoff served in the Minnesota Senate from 2005 - 2016, representing District 44. She was the Democratic nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives in Minnesota's 3rd congressional district, but lost in the general election. Bonoff was born in August 1, 1957, in Edina, Minnesota. She earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and sociology from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1979. Bonoff became the CEO of Jewish Family & Career Services in June of 2019. Ballotpedia (n.d.). “Terri Bonoff” Ballotpedia. September 10, 2022. https://ballotpedia.org/Terri_Bonoff Jewish Family & Career […]
Madeleine Bordallo
Madeleine Bordallo


Madeleine Z. Bordallo served as the delegate from the U.S. territory of Guam to the U.S. House of Representatives from 2003-2019, the first woman to represent Guam in Congress. Bordallo was born in Graceville, Minnesota, on May 31, 1933, and moved to Guam after her father took a job with the Guam Department of Education. In the 1950s and 1960s, she worked for radio and television broadcaster KUAM, an NBC affiliate that was the first television station in Guam. Bordallo's husband served as governor of Guam from 1975-1978 and again […]
Jan Brewer
Jan Brewer


Janice K. Brewer assumed office as Arizona governor in January of 2009, after Governor Janet Napolitano resigned to accept an appointment as secretary of homeland security, and served as governor until 2015. Because Arizona state law limits office holders to two consecutive terms, regardless of whether they serve full or partial terms, she was ineligible to run for governor in 2014. Brewer was born on September 26, 1944, in Hollywood, California. She received her radiological technologist certification from Glendale Community College in Glendale, California. She moved to Arizona in 1970 […]