64 Facts About Kirsten Gillibrand

1.

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

2.

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

3.

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

4.

Kirsten Gillibrand supports paid family leave, a federal jobs guarantee, and the abolition and replacement of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

5.

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

6.

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

7.

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

8.

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

9.

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

10.

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

11.

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.

12.

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.

13.

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

14.

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.

15.

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.

16.

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.

17.

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.

18.

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.

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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.

22.

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

23.

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

24.

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.

25.

Kirsten Gillibrand had supported civil unions for same-sex couples and argued that the same-sex marriage issue should be left to states.

26.

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

27.

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

28.

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.

29.

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

30.

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

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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.

34.

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

35.

In March 2011, Kirsten Gillibrand co-sponsored the PROTECT IP Act, which would restrict access to websites judged to be infringing copyrights, but ultimately announced she would not support the bill as-is due to wide critical public response.

36.

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

37.

Kirsten Gillibrand's bill failed to gain enough votes to break a filibuster in March 2014, but her efforts likely improved her standing as a lawmaker in the Senate.

38.

In December 2013, Kirsten Gillibrand introduced the Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act, which would have provided paid family leave.

39.

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

40.

In 2015, Kirsten Gillibrand invited campus activist Emma Sulkowicz to attend the State of the Union Address.

41.

Kirsten Gillibrand's invitation was intended to promote the Campus Accountability and Safety Act, a bill Gillibrand co-sponsored.

42.

Kirsten Gillibrand once supported legislation that would criminalize "boycotts" by individuals or groups seeking to express a disapproval of the actions taken by the government of Israel.

43.

In July 2017, Kirsten Gillibrand stated that she no longer supported the bill in its then-current form, adding that she would advocate for changes to it.

44.

Kirsten Gillibrand was named as part of the "Hell-No Caucus" by Politico in 2018, along with Senators Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders, for voting "overwhelmingly to thwart [Trump's] nominees for administration jobs", such as with Rex Tillerson, Betsy DeVos, and Mike Pompeo; all the senators were considered potential 2020 presidential contenders at the time, and all five did run for president in 2020.

45.

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.

46.

Kirsten Gillibrand had frequently been mentioned as a possible 2020 contender by the media before her announcement, but during a 2018 Senate campaign debate, she had promised to serve her entire six-year term if she were reelected.

47.

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

48.

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

49.

Kirsten Gillibrand voted for a bill that limited information-sharing between federal agencies about firearm purchasers and advocated for civil unions for same-sex couples.

50.

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".

51.

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.

52.

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".

53.

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".

54.

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

55.

In July 2017, Kirsten Gillibrand said she no longer supported the bill in its then-current form, adding that she would advocate for changes to it.

56.

In 2018, Kirsten Gillibrand said she was "embarrassed and ashamed" of the positions on guns and immigration she took during her House tenure.

57.

Kirsten Gillibrand has gone against her party on a number of occasions on issues related to women's rights.

58.

In 2019, seven Democratic current and former US senators who had demanded Franken's resignation in 2017 told New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer they had been wrong to do so, but Kirsten Gillibrand has expressed no regrets for leading the demand for his resignation.

59.

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.

60.

Kirsten Gillibrand met her husband, Jonathan Kirsten Gillibrand, a venture capitalist and British national, on a blind date.

61.

Kirsten Gillibrand continued to work until the day of Henry's delivery and received a standing ovation from her colleagues in the House for doing so.

62.

Kirsten Gillibrand stated in 2020 that her family was looking for a house in the North Country.

63.

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

64.

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