Cindy Hyde-Smith is an American politician serving as the junior United States senator from Mississippi since 2018.
60 Facts About Cindy Hyde-Smith
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Cindy Hyde-Smith represented the 39th district from 2000 to 2012.
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In 2010, Cindy Hyde-Smith switched parties and became a Republican, citing her conservative beliefs.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith was elected Mississippi agriculture commissioner in 2011, the first woman elected to that office.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith is the first woman to represent Mississippi in Congress.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith was a candidate in the 2018 US Senate special election for the remainder of Cochran's term, which expired in 2021.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith won the runoff election, becoming the first woman elected to Congress from Mississippi.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith was born in Brookhaven, Mississippi, the daughter of Lorraine Hyde and Luther Hyde, and grew up in Monticello, Mississippi.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith attended Lawrence County Academy in Monticello, a segregation academy established in response to Supreme Court rulings ordering the desegregation of public schools.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith is one of the few US senators who attended community college.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith served as the state director for Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee during her time with the National Coalition for Healthcare, which advocated nationwide healthcare coverage.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith was a member of the Mississippi Senate, representing the 39th District from 2000 to 2012.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith had a conservative voting record in the state Senate.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith supported measures to collect DNA samples from people in custody of the Department of Corrections and authored a bill to ban most abortions after 12 weeks.
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In 2001, Cindy Hyde-Smith introduced legislation to name a portion of Highway 51 for Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, who had no ties to the area.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith voted for resolutions honoring civil rights leader Medgar Evers, the Freedom Riders and Hiram Rhodes Revels, who, through legislative appointment during Reconstruction, became the first African American to represent Mississippi in the US Senate.
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In 2009, Cindy Hyde-Smith led an effort to override Barbour's veto of a bill that sought to restrict the power of eminent domain to public use, thereby prohibiting eminent domain for private economic purposes.
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On December 28,2010, Cindy Hyde-Smith announced that she had switched her party affiliation from Democratic to Republican.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith's switch made the Senate equally divided between Republicans and Democrats, with each party holding 26 seats.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith first sought election to the Mississippi Senate in 1999, as she concluded her career as a lobbyist and transitioned back to the state.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith returned to Mississippi, gave birth to her daughter, and qualified to run for state Senate all in one year.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith perceived that Rayborn prioritized his personal interests over his district's and had supported his opponents in the previous two elections.
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In 2007, Cindy Hyde-Smith was unopposed in the Senate District 39 Democratic primary.
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In January 2011, Cindy Hyde-Smith announced her candidacy for Mississippi's commissioner of agriculture and commerce.
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In June 2012, in response to a massive infestation of plant bugs in cotton farms throughout the Mississippi Delta, Cindy Hyde-Smith said that the US Environmental Protection Agency had approved an emergency exemption to help farmers exterminate the bugs.
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In January 2013, Cindy Hyde-Smith successfully pushed for legislation to help fund a big renovation project for the Mississippi Coliseum.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith was reelected in 2015, defeating Democratic nominee Addie Lee Green by over twenty points.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith was sworn in for her second term on January 7,2016.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith became the first woman to represent Mississippi in the United States Congress.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith announced that she would seek election to the seat in the 2018 special election on November 6.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith responded that she had "always been a conservative" and added that she had the support of Republican Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith highlighted her support for Second Amendment rights, opposition to abortion, and advocacy for the state's defense business.
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On November 12,2018, Cindy Hyde-Smith joined Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant at a news conference in Jackson, Mississippi, where she was asked repeatedly about her comment by reporters.
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On November 15,2018, Cindy Hyde-Smith appeared in a video clip saying that it would be "a great idea" to make it more difficult for liberals to vote.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith's campaign said Hyde-Smith was obviously joking and that the video was selectively edited.
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Also in November 2018, media reports noted that Cindy Hyde-Smith attended a school that was created to avoid court-mandated racial integration and made use of various confederate symbols, and that she sent her daughter to a similar school.
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In January 2020, Cindy Hyde-Smith filed to run for a full term in the November election.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith was renominated unopposed in the Republican primary and defeated Espy again in the general election, by ten percentage points.
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On October 16,2018, Cindy Hyde-Smith voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court of the United States.
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On January 6,2021, Cindy Hyde-Smith was participating in the 2021 United States Electoral College vote count debate about Arizona's electoral votes when Trump supporters stormed the United States Capitol.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith later said that she was afraid during the storming of the Capitol and called the rioters "criminals who need to be prosecuted".
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Cindy Hyde-Smith voted in the Democratic primary in 2008 and described herself as having been a conservative Democrat during her tenure in the state legislature.
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In 2012, Cindy Hyde-Smith endorsed Republican nominee Mitt Romney for US president.
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On January 6,2021, Cindy Hyde-Smith joined four other senators in voting to object to the certification of Arizona's electoral votes.
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The Jackson Free Press called on Cindy Hyde-Smith to "recant or resign" for objecting to the certification of Arizona's and Pennsylvania's electoral votes.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith said she would not vote to convict Trump in the event of an impeachment trial.
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On May 28,2021, Cindy Hyde-Smith voted against creating an independent commission to investigate the 2021 United States Capitol attack.
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In 2021, Cindy Hyde-Smith expressed opposition to the For the People Act, which would expand voting rights, falsely claiming that the bill would nullify voter identification laws in Mississippi.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith objected to allowing people to vote on Sunday, which is the Christian Sabbath and a day that black churches coordinate rides to polling places for their parishioners.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith supported the Trump-backed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
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Cindy Hyde-Smith voted with all Mississippi Democrats in the state legislature to restore funding that had been previously eliminated due to budget cuts.
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In May 2019, Cindy Hyde-Smith was a cosponsor of the Transporting Livestock Across America Safely Act, a bipartisan bill introduced by Ben Sasse and Jon Tester intended to reform hours of service for livestock haulers by authorizing drivers to rest at any point during their trip without it being counted against their hours of service and exempting loading and unloading times from the hours of service calculation of driving time.
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In July 2019, Cindy Hyde-Smith was one of eight senators to introduce the Agricultural Trucking Relief Act, a bill that would alter the definition of an agricultural commodity to include both horticultural and aquacultural products and promote greater consistency in regulation through both federal and state agencies as part of an attempt to ease regulatory burdens on trucking and the agri-community.
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In July 2019, Cindy Hyde-Smith was one of eight senators to cosponsor the Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act, a bill intended to strengthen training for new and existing physicians, people who teach palliative care, and other providers who are on the palliative care team that grants patients and their families a voice in their care and treatment goals.
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In October 2019, Cindy Hyde-Smith was one of 27 senators to sign a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer advocating the passage of the Community Health Investment, Modernization, and Excellence Act, which was set to expire the following month.
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In March 2019 Cindy Hyde-Smith was one of 12 senators to co-sponsor a resolution in favor of a constitutional amendment limiting the Supreme Court to nine justices.
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In 2018 Cindy Hyde-Smith released a statement supporting the Trump administration's travel ban on seven predominantly Muslim countries.
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In 2007, Cindy Hyde-Smith voted for a resolution that praised a Confederate States Army soldier for his efforts to "defend his homeland".
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On February 5,2020, at the first impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, Cindy Hyde-Smith voted to acquit Trump.
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On February 13,2021, at Trump's second impeachment trial, Cindy Hyde-Smith voted to acquit Trump.