69 Facts About Kirsten Gillibrand

Kirsten Elizabeth Gillibrand is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from New York since 2009.

Kirsten Gillibrand represented New York's 20th congressional district and was reelected in 2008.

Kirsten Gillibrand won a special election in 2010 to keep the seat, and was reelected to full terms in 2012,2018, and 2024.

Kirsten Gillibrand serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee, the Armed Services Committee, and the Select Committee on Intelligence, and is the ranking member on the Special Committee on Aging.

Kirsten Gillibrand ran for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States in 2020, officially announcing her candidacy on March 17,2019.

Kirsten Gillibrand Elizabeth Rutnik was born on December 9,1966, in Albany, New York, the daughter of Polly Edwina and Douglas Paul Rutnik.

Kirsten Gillibrand majored in Asian Studies, studying in both Beijing and Taiwan.

Kirsten Gillibrand received her JD from UCLA School of Law and passed the bar exam in 1991.

Kirsten Gillibrand worked closely on the case and became a key part of the defense team.

Kirsten Gillibrand left Boies in 2005 to begin her 2006 campaign for Congress.

Kirsten Gillibrand has said her work at private law firms allowed her to take on pro bono cases defending abused women and their children and tenants seeking safe housing after lead paint and unsafe conditions were found in their homes.

In 1999, Kirsten Gillibrand began working on Hillary Clinton's 2000 US Senate campaign, focusing on campaigning to young women and encouraging them to join the effort.

Kirsten Gillibrand's legal representation of Philip Morris was an issue during the campaign.

Len Cutler, director of the Center for the Study of Government and Politics at Siena College, said that the seat would be difficult for Kirsten Gillibrand to hold in 2008, with Republicans substantially outnumbering Democrats in the district.

Treadwell lost despite significantly outspending Kirsten Gillibrand and promising never to vote to raise taxes, not to accept a federal salary, and to limit himself to three terms in office.

Kirsten Gillibrand said that she never hid her work for Philip Morris, and added that as an associate at her law firm, she had had no control over which clients she worked for.

Kirsten Gillibrand opposed a 2007 state-level proposal to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants and voted for legislation that would withhold federal funds from immigrant sanctuary cities.

Kirsten Gillibrand voted for a bill that limited information-sharing between federal agencies about firearm purchasers and received an "A" rating from the NRA Political Victory Fund.

Kirsten Gillibrand expressed personal support for same-sex marriage, but advocated for civil unions for same-sex couples and said same-sex marriage should a state-level issue.

Kirsten Gillibrand published earmark requests she received and her personal financial statement.

Kirsten Gillibrand quietly campaigned for the position, meeting secretly with Paterson on at least one occasion.

Kirsten Gillibrand said that she made an effort to underscore her successful House elections in a largely conservative district, adding that she could be a good complement to Chuck Schumer.

Kirsten Gillibrand was presumed a likely choice in the days before the official announcement.

Kirsten Gillibrand was relatively unknown statewide, and many voters found the choice surprising.

Shortly before her appointment to the Senate was announced, Kirsten Gillibrand reportedly contacted the Empire State Pride Agenda, an LGBT lobbying organization in New York, to express her full support for same-sex marriage, the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, the repeal of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy regarding gay and lesbian servicemembers, and the passage of legislation banning discrimination against transgender persons.

Kirsten Gillibrand was sworn in on January 26,2009; at 42, she entered the chamber as the youngest senator in the 111th Congress.

Kirsten Gillibrand had numerous potential challengers in the September 14,2010, Democratic primary election.

Concerned about a possible schism in the party that could lead to a heated primary, split electorate, and weakened stance, high-ranking members of the party backed Kirsten Gillibrand and requested major opponents not to run.

Kirsten Gillibrand ran for a full six-year term in November 2012.

Kirsten Gillibrand was endorsed by The New York Times and the Democrat and Chronicle.

Kirsten Gillibrand carried all counties except for two in western New York.

Kirsten Gillibrand was endorsed by the progressive groups Indivisible and the Working Families Party.

For example, although she had been quiet on the US military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy when she was in the House, during her first 18 months in the Senate, Kirsten Gillibrand was an important part of the successful campaign to repeal it.

Kirsten Gillibrand made national headlines in February 2009 for stating that she and her husband kept two guns under their bed.

Kirsten Gillibrand was at the forefront of the effort to repeal the ban and her advocacy was recognized as a major force behind the repeal's passage.

In 2015, Kirsten Gillibrand was the Senate lead on the successful reauthorization of the Zadroga Act, which effectively made the WTCHP permanent by renewing it for 75 years and extended the VCF for 5 years.

In 2019, Kirsten Gillibrand helped lead the effort to pass the Never Forget the Heroes: James Zadroga, Ray Pfeifer, and Luis Alvarez Permanent Authorization of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund Act.

In 2012, Kirsten Gillibrand authored part of the STOCK Act, which extended limitations on insider trading by members of Congress.

In July 2023, Kirsten Gillibrand introduced bipartisan legislation with Senator Josh Hawley to ban stock ownership outright for members of Congress, senior members of the executive branch, and their spouses and dependents.

In 2013, Kirsten Gillibrand began a nearly decade-long fight to reform and professionalize the military justice system.

The bill failed to gain enough votes to break a filibuster in March 2014, but after years of advocacy with her colleagues, Kirsten Gillibrand's bill garnered the support of a bipartisan, filibuster-proof majority of senators.

In December 2013, Kirsten Gillibrand introduced the Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act.

In 2014, Kirsten Gillibrand was included in the annual Time 100, Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

In 2022, Kirsten Gillibrand shepherded two pieces of legislation through Congress that enacted significant workplace reforms.

In June 2022, after more than a decade of advocacy, Kirsten Gillibrand succeeded in passing legislation to make gun trafficking a federal crime.

Kirsten Gillibrand first introduced the Gun Trafficking Prevention Act in 2009 after meeting the mother of Nyasia Pryear-Yard, a 17-year-old from Brooklyn who was killed by a stray bullet, and pledging to take action on guns.

Kirsten Gillibrand reintroduced the bill in every subsequent Congress after it failed to pass, ultimately renaming it the Hadiya Pendleton and Nyasia Pryear-Yard Gun Trafficking and Crime Prevention Act.

The core of Kirsten Gillibrand's legislation passed in 2022 as part of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.

Kirsten Gillibrand initially introduced the legislation in 2020 to provide care and benefits to veterans who were present at burn pit sites during their military service and subsequently developed certain serious illnesses, removing the need for them to prove that their conditions were definitively burn pit-related.

Since the return of congressional earmarks in 2022, Kirsten Gillibrand has ranked among the top members of Congress in terms of earmark funds secured.

Kirsten Gillibrand obtained $230.6 million in earmarks for New York-based projects in 2022 and $267 million in 2023.

In early 2019, on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Kirsten Gillibrand announced the formation of an exploratory committee to consider running for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 United States presidential election.

Kirsten Gillibrand had frequently been mentioned as a possible 2020 contender by the media before her announcement.

Kirsten Gillibrand suspended her campaign on August 28,2019, citing her failure to qualify for the third round of Democratic primary debates.

Kirsten Gillibrand neither met the polling threshold nor sustained the fundraising quota set as debate qualifications.

Kirsten Gillibrand was the first senator to call on him to resign, but Franken did so only after more than two dozen Democratic senators echoed this call.

Kirsten Gillibrand doubled down on her actions on numerous occasions, even after several Democrats expressed regret for calling for his resignation.

In July 2018, Newsday wrote that Kirsten Gillibrand "formerly held more conservative views on guns and immigration, but, in her nine years as New York's junior senator, [has] swung steadily to the left on those and other issues".

In June 2018, Kirsten Gillibrand called US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, a "deportation force" and became the first sitting senator to support the call to abolish ICE.

Kirsten Gillibrand said, "I believe you should get rid of it, start over, reimagine it and build something that actually works" and "I think you should reimagine ICE under a new agency with a very different mission".

In July 2018, The New York Times wrote that Kirsten Gillibrand had "spent recent months injecting her portfolio with a dose of the kind of economic populism that infused Senator Bernie Sanders's campaign in the 2016 presidential primary".

On social issues, Kirsten Gillibrand is generally liberal, supporting the legalization of cannabis, abortion rights, and helping to lead the successful repeal effort of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell".

In 2024, Kirsten Gillibrand introduced a new bill to address traumatic brain injuries in military veterans and service members.

Kirsten Gillibrand has been critical of the second Trump administration, particularly its firing of federal employees and proposed budget cuts.

In November 2017, amid the MeToo movement, Kirsten Gillibrand became the first high-profile Democrat to say that Bill Clinton should have resigned when his affair with Monica Lewinsky was revealed.

Kirsten Gillibrand met Jonathan Kirsten Gillibrand, a British venture capitalist who later became a senior adviser for oceans and international environmental and scientific affairs at the US State Department, on a blind date; he was planning to be in the US for only a year while studying for his MBA at Columbia University, but stayed because of their developing relationship.

Kirsten Gillibrand continued working until the day of her first son's birth and received a standing ovation from her House colleagues for doing so.

Kirsten Gillibrand was inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa, a national leadership honor society, as an honoris causa initiate at SUNY Plattsburgh in 2012.

In 2014, Kirsten Gillibrand published her first book, Off the Sidelines: Raise Your Voice, Change the World.