55 Facts About Katherine Harris

1.

Katherine Harris was born on April 5,1957 and is a former American politician.

2.

Katherine Harris lost her 2006 campaign for a United States Senate seat from Florida, after a significant loss of party support.

3.

Katherine Harris was born in Key West, Florida, to one of the state's wealthiest and most politically influential families.

4.

Katherine Harris is the daughter of Harriett and George W Harris Jr.

5.

Katherine Harris graduated from Bartow High School in Bartow, Florida, in 1975.

6.

Katherine Harris received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia, in 1979.

7.

Katherine Harris studied under Christian theologian Francis Schaeffer at the L'Abri community in Huemoz, Switzerland.

8.

Katherine Harris ran for the Florida senate as a Republican in 1994 in one of the most expensive state races in Florida history to that time.

9.

Katherine Harris played a prominent role in introducing William Griffin, the CEO of Riscorp, to various Florida legislators.

10.

Katherine Harris defeated then-incumbent Sandra Mortham in the Republican primary and won the general election against Democratic candidate, Karen Gievers, an attorney from Miami.

11.

Since Katherine Harris failed to do so, she was required to resign immediately.

12.

Katherine Harris said that she thought because Florida voters had approved a constitutional amendment that made the position of Secretary of State an appointed office rather than an elected office, the law did not apply to her situation.

13.

However, Florida House Leader Tom Feeney said that he disagreed with the Senate and believed that Katherine Harris was an able advocate to foreign countries.

14.

Katherine Harris was involved in purging 173,000 individuals from the state's voter rolls, the results of hiring a firm, "Choice Point," that provided Florida with an extremely inaccurate list of those supposed felons who became disenfranchised via misidentification.

15.

The official vote totals showed the Republican candidate, Texas Governor George W Bush, as the narrow winner of the statewide popular vote in Florida, so Harris certified the Republican slate of electors.

16.

Katherine Harris's certification was upheld in the state circuit court, but subsequently overturned on appeal by the Florida Supreme Court.

17.

Katherine Harris later published Center of the Storm, her memoir of the 2000 election controversy.

18.

In 2002, Katherine Harris ran against Sarasota Attorney Jan Schneider for the congressional district vacated by retiring Republican Rep.

19.

Katherine Harris considered running for the seat of retiring Senator Bob Graham in 2004 but was reportedly dissuaded by the Bush White House to allow Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Mel Martinez to run instead.

20.

Katherine Harris ran for re-election to her House seat in 2004; she was re-elected with a margin almost identical to her first win.

21.

In 2005 and 2006, a major corporate campaign donor to Katherine Harris, Mitchell Wade, was implicated in several bribery scandals.

22.

Katherine Harris has maintained she had no personal knowledge that her campaign was given illegal contributions.

23.

Katherine Harris later released the April 26,2005, letter for legal scrutiny, but neither she nor Young would turn over the request form used for the proposal.

24.

Katherine Harris heard whatever she wanted to hear, but we could find no evidence whatsoever that this was a project going into her district.

25.

The next day, Katherine Harris's campaign issued a statement that she had believed her campaign had reimbursed the restaurant, and that she had donated $100 "which will more than adequately compensate for the cost of my beverage and appetizer".

26.

Mona Tate Yost, an aide to Katherine Harris, left to work for MZM during the time Wade was pressing Katherine Harris to secure federal funding.

27.

On June 7,2005, with support from her new campaign advisors of Ed Rollins and Jim Dornan, Katherine Harris announced her candidacy for the United States Senate election, challenging Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson.

28.

Late in the primary race, Republican contender Will McBride polled 31 points behind Nelson in a hypothetical election against him, while Katherine Harris polled 33 points behind Nelson in the same poll.

29.

Katherine Harris stated that her run was dedicated to the memory of her father.

30.

In early April 2006, Katherine Harris told the Tampa Tribune that some of her ex-campaign staffers and the national Republican party were deliberately sabotaging her campaign by "putting knives in her back" and had warned her that if she did not back out of the campaign, she would get an "April surprise".

31.

Later, an ex-aide told the Associated Press that Katherine Harris had received a grand jury subpoena from federal investigators, but kept it from her top advisers, prompting several staff members to quit when they found out.

32.

The next day, Harris received resignations from Campaign Manager Glenn Hodas, Field Director Pat Thomas, Political Director Brian Brooks and Deputy Field Director John K Byers, while Travel Aide Kyle Johnson and Field Director Mike Norris declined to leave, citing loyalty to Harris.

33.

Only 40 people showed up for the event, and Katherine Harris blamed the paltry turnout in part on a last-minute change in location.

34.

Katherine Harris claimed that a tree fell on the hangar that was scheduled to hold the rally, forcing her campaign to switch to another hangar.

35.

Airport officials stated that not only had no trees fallen, but that there are no trees as they get in the way of the airplanes; further adding that the event in fact took place in the hangar that Katherine Harris's campaign had originally booked.

36.

Katherine Harris's campaign blamed Metzler for the comments Katherine Harris made after the rally.

37.

The Pensacola News Journal suggested that Katherine Harris might withdraw from the Senate race after winning a primary victory, thereby allowing the Republicans to nominate another candidate, such as Tom Gallagher, to run against Bill Nelson.

38.

Katherine Harris was not invited; Republicans said the tour was only for nominees to statewide offices.

39.

Katherine Harris claimed Bush would campaign with her sometime in the two months before the election, but the governor's office denied this.

40.

The only endorsement Katherine Harris received was from the Polk County Democrat, a newspaper in Bartow which publishes four days out of the week.

41.

Katherine Harris was a headline speaker at the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church's "Reclaiming America for Christ" conference held in Ft.

42.

On October 3,2006, Katherine Harris participated in a prayer service via phone call.

43.

Katherine Harris then went on and prayed for Jews to be converted to Christianity.

44.

Katherine Harris is anti-abortion and voted against embryonic stem cell research.

45.

Katherine Harris voted in favor of granting legal status to fetuses via the Unborn Victims of Violence Act.

46.

Katherine Harris supported tax cuts and the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, which restricts bankruptcy filings by consumers.

47.

Katherine Harris was in favor of welfare reform, school vouchers, the Patriot Act, the Flag Desecration Amendment, the Federal Marriage Amendment, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

48.

Katherine Harris was the subject of some skits on Saturday Night Live, in which she was played by Ana Gasteyer; she was portrayed by actress Laura Dern in the 2008 film Recount, for which Dern won a Golden Globe.

49.

Katherine Harris was mentioned in Family guy Season 5 Episode 16 'No Chris Left Behind'.

50.

Katherine Harris was referenced in one of filmmaker Kevin Smith's monologues for the DVD An Evening with Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder.

51.

Katherine Harris's grandfather was a Christian missionary in Africa, while her aunt and uncle were missionaries in India.

52.

Katherine Harris studied under Dr Francis Schaeffer at a L'Abri Fellowship International center.

53.

Katherine Harris attended Greystone, an all-girls Christian camp at Asheville, North Carolina.

54.

Katherine Harris attended Calvary Chapel, a non-denominational charismatic church in Sarasota, Florida as of 2006.

55.

Katherine Harris married Swedish businessman Sven Anders Axel Ebbeson in 1996 and has one stepdaughter, Louise.