57 Facts About Maxine Waters

Maxine Moore Waters is an American politician serving as the US representative for since 1991.

Maxine Waters is the most senior of the 12 black women serving in Congress, and chaired the Congressional Black Caucus from 1997 to 1999.

Maxine Waters is the second-most senior member of the California congressional delegation, after Nancy Pelosi.

Maxine Waters chaired the House Financial Services Committee from 2019 to 2023 and has been the ranking member since 2023.

Maxine Waters was included in Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2018.

Maxine Waters was born in 1938 in St Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Remus Carr and Velma Lee.

Maxine Waters graduated from Vashon High School in St Louis before moving with her family to Los Angeles in 1961.

Maxine Waters worked in a garment factory and as a telephone operator before being hired as an assistant teacher with the Head Start program in Watts in 1966.

Maxine Waters later enrolled at Los Angeles State College, where she received a bachelor's degree in sociology in 1971.

In 1973, Waters went to work as chief deputy to City Councilman David S Cunningham, Jr.

Maxine Waters was elected to the California State Assembly in 1976.

Maxine Waters ascended to the position of Democratic Caucus Chair for the Assembly.

Maxine Waters has represented large parts of south-central Los Angeles and the Los Angeles coastal communities of Westchester and Playa Del Rey, as well as the cities of Torrance, Gardena, Hawthorne, Inglewood and Lawndale.

On July 29,1994, Maxine Waters came to public attention when she repeatedly interrupted a speech by Representative Peter King.

Maxine Waters was eventually suspended from the House for the rest of the day.

Maxine Waters felt King's questioning of Maggie Williams was too harsh, and they subsequently exchanged hostile words.

Maxine Waters chaired the Congressional Black Caucus from 1997 to 1998.

Maxine Waters criticized media coverage of the hospital and asked the Federal Communications Commission to deny a waiver of the cross ownership ban, and hence license renewal for KTLA-TV, a station the Los Angeles Times owned.

In 2009 Maxine Waters had a confrontation with Representative Dave Obey over an earmark in the United States House Committee on Appropriations.

In 2011, Maxine Waters voted against the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, related to a controversial provision that allows the government and the military to detain American citizens and others indefinitely without trial.

On March 27,2014, Maxine Waters introduced a discussion draft of the Housing Opportunities Move the Economy Forward Act of 2014 known as the Home Forward Act of 2014.

In 2009, Maxine Waters co-sponsored Representative John Conyers's bill calling for reparations for slavery to be paid to black Americans.

Maxine Waters asked whether "US-government paid or organized operatives smuggled, transported and sold it to American citizens".

Maxine Waters came under investigation for ethics violations and was accused by a House panel of at least one ethics violation related to her efforts to help OneUnited Bank receive federal aid.

Maxine Waters's husband is a stockholder and former director of OneUnited Bank and the bank's executives were major contributors to her campaigns.

In September 2008, Maxine Waters arranged meetings between US Treasury Department officials and OneUnited Bank so that the bank could plead for federal cash.

Maxine Waters was one of 31 House Democrats who voted to not count Ohio's electoral votes in the 2004 presidential election.

In July 2017, during a House Financial Services Committee meeting, Maxine Waters questioned United States Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin.

At several points during the questioning, Maxine Waters used the phrase "reclaiming my time" when Mnuchin did not directly address the questions Maxine Waters had asked him.

In early 2018, Maxine Waters was among the members of Congress the Republican Jewish Coalition called on to resign due to their connections with Nation of Islam leader and known anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan, who had recently drawn criticism for antisemitic remarks.

The Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle noted that Maxine Waters had "long embraced Farrakhan" and refused to denounce him, even as other members of the Congressional Black Caucus who secretly met with Farrakhan in 2005 eventually did.

Maxine Waters "helped deliver relief supplies in Watts and demanded the resumption of vital services".

On June 23,2018, after an incident in which White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was denied service and asked to leave a restaurant, Maxine Waters urged attendees at a rally in Los Angeles to confront Trump administration officials, saying:.

The judge in Chauvin's trial said on April 19,2021, that Maxine Waters's comments were "abhorrent" and that it was "disrespectful to the rule of law and to the judicial branch" for elected officials to comment in advance of the verdict.

Maxine Waters later said that her remarks in Brooklyn Center were taken out of context and that she believed in nonviolent actions.

Maxine Waters referred to African Americans' high unemployment rate.

At a Congressional Black Caucus town-hall meeting on jobs in Detroit, Maxine Waters said that African American members of Congress were reluctant to criticize or place public pressure on Obama because "y'all love the President".

In October 2011, Maxine Waters had a public dispute with Obama, arguing that he paid more attention to swing voters in the Iowa caucuses than to equal numbers of black voters.

Maxine Waters has called Trump "a bully, an egotistical maniac, a liar and someone who did not need to be president" and "the most deplorable person I've ever met in my life".

Maxine Waters began to call for the impeachment of Trump shortly after he took office.

On December 18,2019, Maxine Waters voted for both articles of impeachment against Trump.

On June 18,2019, Maxine Waters asked Facebook to halt its plan for the development and launching of Libra, a new cryptocurrency, citing a list of recent scandals.

Maxine Waters has visited Cuba a number of times, praising Fidel Castro's moves towards democracy.

Maxine Waters criticized previous US efforts to overthrow him and demanded an end to the US trade embargo.

In 1998, Maxine Waters wrote Castro a letter calling the 1960s and 1970s "a sad and shameful chapter of our history" and thanking him for helping those who needed to "flee political persecution".

In 1998, Maxine Waters wrote Castro an open letter asking him not to extradite convicted terrorist Assata Shakur from Cuba, where she had sought asylum.

Maxine Waters argued that much of the Black community regarded her conviction as false.

Maxine Waters had earlier supported a Republican bill to extradite Shakur, who was referred to by her former name, Joanne Chesimard.

In 1999, Maxine Waters called on President Bill Clinton to return six-year-old Elian Gonzalez to his father in Cuba; the boy had survived a boat journey from Cuba, during which his mother had drowned, and was taken in by US relatives.

Maxine Waters opposed the 2004 coup d'etat in Haiti and criticized US involvement.

On October 1,2020, Maxine Waters co-signed a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that condemned Azerbaijan's offensive operations against the Armenian-populated enclave Nagorno-Karabakh, denounced Turkey's role in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and called for an immediate ceasefire.

Maxine Waters has been very critical of the Tea Party movement.

Maxine Waters voted against the Iraq War Resolution, the 2002 resolution that funded and granted Congressional approval to possible military action against the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Maxine Waters has remained a consistent critic of the subsequent war and has supported immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq.

Additionally, Maxine Waters, representing a congressional district whose median income falls far below the national average, argued that patriotism alone had not been the sole driving force for those US service personnel serving in Iraq.

Maxine Waters's second husband, Sid Williams, played professional football in the NFL and is a former US Ambassador to the Bahamas under the Clinton Administration.

In May 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Maxine Waters confirmed her sister, Velma Moody, had died of the virus aged 86.