1. Jenny Anne Durkan was born on May 19,1958 and is an American attorney, former federal prosecutor, and politician who served as the 56th mayor of Seattle, Washington.
61 Facts About Jenny Durkan
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Jenny Durkan was elected the 56th mayor of Seattle in 2017, becoming the city's first female mayor since the 1920s, its second openly LGBT elected mayor, and first elected mayor born in Seattle.
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Jenny Durkan was criticized for her response to the George Floyd protests in Seattle and her handling of protesters and law enforcement in the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone.
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Jenny Durkan was raised in a large Irish Catholic family of eight siblings.
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Jenny Durkan's mother was primarily a homemaker who supported her husband's career, though she eventually became an executive editor of the Ballard News-Tribune and wrote editorials.
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Jenny Durkan attended Forest Ridge School of the Sacred Heart, a private Catholic girls' school in Washington State.
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In 1994 Jenny Durkan became executive council and political director to Governor Mike Lowry, making her Lowry's chief lawyer.
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Lowry had been a campaign manager to and protege of her father in 1972, and Jenny Durkan worked for then congressman Lowry in the 1980s.
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In January 2017, Jenny Durkan worked with families and other attorneys at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to obtain a federal court order, the day President Donald Trump's first travel ban executive order went into effect, blocking the deportation of people who had arrived at the airport from seven predominantly Muslim countries.
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Jenny Durkan served on the Washington State Sentencing Guidelines Commission from 1993 to 1996.
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Jenny Durkan served as the first Citizen Observer on the Seattle Police Firearms Review Board from 1997 to 2000 and two Seattle mayors asked her to serve on Citizen Review Committees for the Seattle Police Department.
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Jenny Durkan played an advisory role on the establishment of the King County Drug Court and the Mental Health Court.
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Jenny Durkan later helped create a specialized drug program in the federal courts in Western Washington.
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In September 1994, Jenny Durkan left the Schroeter law firm to join the staff of then-Washington Governor Mike Lowry as his lawyer and political adviser.
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Jenny Durkan served a three-year term on the Washington State Bar Association Board of Governors.
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Jenny Durkan served on the Merit Selection Committee for the United States District Court, helping select the candidates for appointment to seven vacancies in the federal judiciary in the Western District of Washington.
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Jenny Durkan served on the nonprofit board of the Center for Women and Democracy from 2000 to 2009, as a founding Board Member for the Seattle Police Foundation from 2002 to 2004, and as the Chair of the Washington State Attorney General's Task Force on Consumer Privacy, which resulted in legislation that became a national model for identity theft protections.
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In May 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Jenny Durkan to be the USAttorney for the Western District of Washington, which covers 19 counties and is home to 4.6 million people.
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Jenny Durkan was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate on September 29,2009, and sworn in on October 1 by Chief US District Judge Robert S Lasnik.
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Jenny Durkan helped push police reform efforts in the Seattle Police Department after a Department of Justice investigation found a pattern and practice of excessive use of force.
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Jenny Durkan was chair of the Attorney General's Subcommittee on Cybercrime and Intellectual Property Enforcement.
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Jenny Durkan played a leading role in prosecuting cybercrimes, including hacking, skimming and identity theft.
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Jenny Durkan worked with the public schools to ensure internet safety tips for parents and kids were sent home with kids at the beginning of the school year.
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Jenny Durkan focused on terrorism and national security issues, including the prosecution of two men who plotted to blow up a military recruitment facility in Seattle.
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Jenny Durkan pushed "hot spot" initiatives in high-crime areas to address drug and gun sales.
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In September 2014, when US Attorney General Eric Holder announced his intention to step down, Jenny Durkan was widely discussed as a potential candidate to succeed him.
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Jenny Durkan asserted that the dispensaries in question were believed to be concealing criminal activity behind the state's medical marijuana law and that authorities would not ignore flagrant violations.
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Jenny Durkan's office headed the prosecution that followed the vandalization of Seattle's William Kenzo Nakamura US Courthouse during the protests.
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The justification given for this by a spokeswoman for Jenny Durkan's office was that it was "coercive" and could lead them to testify, rather than being "punitive".
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The Department of Justice and Jenny Durkan's office were widely criticized.
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In 2013 Jenny Durkan prosecuted Walli Mujahidh and Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif for conspiring to kill US military personnel on July 4,2011, in a terrorist plot.
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Jenny Durkan outraised Moon 5 to 1, with over $600,000 coming from a political organization sponsored by the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, allowing large corporations such as Amazon, CenturyLink, Comcast, Vulcan, and Starbucks to quietly influence a major local campaign.
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Jenny Durkan later apologized for distributing the tequila, saying she had thought the event, held at late night music venue Neumos, was for people 21 and over.
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Jenny Durkan claimed that she was not given the opportunity to sign the letter, but Unite Here Local 8 said that Jenny Durkan chose not to sign the letter after multiple requests.
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Jenny Durkan's campaign received $50,000 from the two PACs, including $20,000 from Seattle luxury hotel developer Richard Hedreen.
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On her second day in office, Jenny Durkan signed an Executive Order to create the Seattle Promise College Tuition Program to expand free access to college for Seattle public school students.
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Jenny Durkan was cited as one of the key advocates for the bringing of the NHL team the Kraken to Seattle.
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Jenny Durkan crafted legislation to raise the pay rate for ride share workers, and signed new gun restrictions into law.
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Jenny Durkan has been an outspoken critic of President Trump throughout her time in office.
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Jenny Durkan threatened to retake the city if local leaders did not reassert their authority.
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Jenny Durkan called the creation of the police-free autonomous zone an attempt to "de-escalate interactions between protesters and law enforcement".
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Jenny Durkan has been critical of scooter-sharing, with Seattle maintaining its ban on electric scooter-sharing apps, unlike other major US cities.
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In March 2018, Jenny Durkan halted planning work on the Central City Connector streetcar project, which would link the South Lake Union and First Hill lines of the Seattle Streetcar system, due to cost overruns.
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Jenny Durkan nominated Best as a finalist after another finalist withdrew to take a different position within the department, and the city council confirmed Best as police chief in August 2018.
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One alleged that Jenny Durkan had "grabbed her face and forcibly turned her head" when the employee was making suggestions on how to handle the anniversary of the death of community leader Donnie Chin.
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Jenny Durkan was halfway through her term when the first recorded US case of COVID-19 appeared in the Seattle area on January 19,2020, and the first recorded US death on February 29.
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On March 17,2020, Jenny Durkan signed an emergency order prohibiting the eviction of small businesses and nonprofits for 60 days or until the end of the emergency.
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The City Council and Jenny Durkan had already halted most residential evictions.
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In May 2020, Jenny Durkan closed more than 20 miles of city streets to most vehicles in order to enable more socially distanced biking and walking.
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In May 2020, to help families in economic distress from covid shutdowns, Jenny Durkan's administration sent $800 supermarket vouchers to households enrolled in subsidized child care and food programs, later extending the voucher program to other households.
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Jenny Durkan said the encampments were cleared for the safety of both their residents and the community, and had "shootings, human trafficking and other violent crimes".
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Jenny Durkan objected to the bill and the council did not reach an agreement.
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Jenny Durkan has spent part of her tenure focusing on homelessness, creating 600 new units of supportive housing for people experiencing homelessness in 2020.
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In July 2019, Jenny Durkan signed a bill and an executive order to increase the availability of backyard cottages.
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On November 19,2017, Jenny Durkan signed an executive order to create the Seattle Promise College Tuition Program, which increases free access to college for Seattle public school students.
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Jenny Durkan said that in order to increase the chances that students will succeed, the program included support to help them decide what college to attend, as well as preparing them for student life, including what to study.
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Jenny Durkan used some of the Covid-19 relief funds from the American Rescue Plan to extend the program in 2021.
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Jenny Durkan said that the SPD policy of body cams not recording "lawful protests" would be reviewed.
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Jenny Durkan estimated that her legal expenses to fight the recall would total $240,000.
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On December 7,2020, Jenny Durkan announced that she would not seek reelection.
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Jenny Durkan's office claimed the missing texts were due to an "unknown technology issue", but her staff knew the texts were missing because they were deliberately set to automatically delete.