57 Facts About Tammy Baldwin

Tammy Suzanne Green Baldwin was born on February 11,1962 and is an American lawyer and politician who has served as the junior United States senator from Wisconsin since 2013.

In 2012, Baldwin was elected to the United States Senate, defeating Republican nominee Tommy Thompson.

In 2018, Tammy Baldwin was reelected, defeating Republican nominee Leah Vukmir.

Tammy Baldwin, who is a lesbian, became the first openly LGBT woman elected to the House of Representatives and to the Senate in 1999 and 2013, respectively.

Tammy Baldwin was the first woman to be elected to either chamber from Wisconsin.

Tammy Baldwin identifies as a progressive, and she has a consistently progressive voting record.

Tammy Baldwin was raised by her grandparents and spent Saturdays with her mother, who suffered from mental illness and opioid addiction.

Tammy Baldwin graduated from Madison West High School in 1980 as the class valedictorian.

Tammy Baldwin was a lawyer in private practice from 1989 to 1992.

Tammy Baldwin was first elected to political office in 1986 at the age of 24, when she was elected to the Dane County Board of Supervisors, a position she held until 1994.

Tammy Baldwin served one year on the Madison City Council to fill a vacancy in the coterminous district.

In 1992, Tammy Baldwin ran to represent Wisconsin's 78th Assembly district in western Madison.

Tammy Baldwin was one of just six openly gay political candidates nationwide to win a general election in 1992.

Tammy Baldwin was the first openly lesbian member of the Wisconsin Assembly and one of a very few openly gay politicians in the country at the time.

In 1998, US Congressman Scott Klug of the 2nd district, based in Madison, announced he would retire, prompting Tammy Baldwin to run for the seat.

Tammy Baldwin was the first woman elected to Congress from Wisconsin.

Tammy Baldwin was the first openly gay person elected to the House of Representatives, and the first open lesbian elected to Congress.

Tammy Baldwin ran as the Democratic nominee against Republican nominee Tommy Thompson, who had formerly been governor and Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Tammy Baldwin announced her candidacy on September 6,2011, in a video emailed to supporters.

Tammy Baldwin ran uncontested in the primary election, and spoke at the 2012 Democratic National Convention about tax policy, campaign finance reform, and equality in the United States.

Tammy Baldwin was endorsed by the editorial board of The Capital Times, who wrote that "Tammy Baldwin's fresh ideas on issues ranging from job creation to health care reform, along with her proven record of working across lines of partisanship and ideology, and her grace under pressure mark her as precisely the right choice to replace retiring US Senator Herb Kohl".

Tammy Baldwin was succeeded in Congress by State Assemblyman Mark Pocan, who had earlier succeeded her in the state legislature.

Tammy Baldwin was featured in Time's November 19,2012, edition, in the Verbatim section, where she was quoted as saying "I didn't run to make history" on her historic election.

In 2003, Tammy Baldwin served on the advisory committee of the Progressive Majority, a political action committee dedicated to electing progressive candidates to public office.

In October 2012, Baldwin described herself as a progressive in the mold of Robert M La Follette.

Tammy Baldwin is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the Afterschool Caucuses.

In 2018, Tammy Baldwin sponsored the Reward Work Act of 2018, which proposed to guarantee the right of employees in listed companies to elect one-third of the board of directors.

In July 2019, Tammy Baldwin signed a letter to United States Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta that advocated that the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration make a full investigation into a complaint filed on May 20 by a group of Chicago-area employees of McDonald's that detailed instances of workplace violence, such as customers throwing hot coffee and threatening employees with firearms.

Tammy Baldwin voted against building a fence on the US-Mexico border in 2006.

An outspoken advocate of single-payer, government-run universal health care system since her days as a state legislator, Tammy Baldwin introduced the Health Security for All Americans Act, which would have required states to provide such a system, in 2000,2002,2004, and 2005.

Tammy Baldwin ultimately voted for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, which became law in 2010.

Tammy Baldwin said she hoped a public option in the ACA would lead to a single-payer system.

The first version of the ACA Tammy Baldwin voted for included a public option, but the final version did not.

In 2009, Tammy Baldwin introduced the Ending LGBT Health Disparities Act, which sought to advance LGBT health priorities by promoting research, cultural competency, and non-discrimination policies.

In July 2019 Tammy Baldwin was one of eight senators to cosponsor the Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act, a bill intended to strengthen training for new and existing physicians, people who teach palliative care, and other providers who are on the palliative care team that grants patients and their families a voice in their care and treatment goals.

Tammy Baldwin voted nine times in favor of other similar bills.

Tammy Baldwin's vote received renewed attention in the 2012 US Senate campaign when Tommy Thompson's campaign released an ad about it, which Politifact rated "Mostly False".

In 2009, when the House voted overwhelmingly to defund ACORN, Tammy Baldwin was one of 75 House members who voted against the measure.

On October 20,2013, Tammy Baldwin was one of sixteen female Democratic Senators to sign a letter endorsing Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee in the 2016 presidential election.

Tammy Baldwin's office did not explain why they waited from August 2014 to January 2015 to call for an investigation.

Tammy Baldwin was the only member of Congress who had a copy of the inspection report.

In February 2015, Tammy Baldwin fired her deputy state director over her handling of the VA report.

Tammy Baldwin said, "we should have done a better job listening to and communicating with another constituent with whom we were working on problems at the VA", and that she had started a review of why her office had failed to act on the report.

In November 2017, Tammy Baldwin co-sponsored legislation designed to strengthen opioid safety in the Department of Veterans Affairs.

In December 2017, Tammy Baldwin was one of six senators to sign a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer requesting their "help in ensuring the long-term sustainability of the 340B program", a Trump administration rule mandating that drug companies give discounts to health-care organizations presently serving large numbers of low-income patients.

In June 2017, Tammy Baldwin voted for a resolution by Rand Paul and Chris Murphy that would block Trump's $510 million sale of precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia that made up a portion of the $110 billion arms sale Trump announced during his visit to Saudi Arabia the previous year.

In March 2018, Tammy Baldwin voted against tabling a resolution spearheaded by Bernie Sanders, Chris Murphy, and Mike Lee that would have required Trump to withdraw American troops either in or influencing Yemen within the next 30 days unless they were combating Al-Qaeda.

In May 2020, Tammy Baldwin voiced her opposition to Israel's plan to annex parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

In March 2019, Tammy Baldwin was a cosponsor of a bipartisan resolution led by Gary Peters and Jerry Moran that opposed privatization of the United States Postal Service, citing the USPS as a self-sustained establishment and noting concerns that privatization could cause higher prices and reduced services for its customers, especially in rural communities.

In September 2016, Tammy Baldwin was one of 12 senators to sign a letter to President Obama asserting that the passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership "in its current form will perpetuate a trade policy that advantages corporations at the expense of American workers" and that there would be an "erosion of US manufacturing and middle class jobs, and accelerate the corporate race to the bottom" if provisions were not fixed.

In November 2018, Tammy Baldwin was one of 25 Democratic senators to cosponsor a resolution in response to findings of the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change report and National Climate Assessment.

In June 2019, Tammy Baldwin was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Pompeo, requesting an explanation of a State Department decision not to issue an official statement that year commemorating Pride Month, nor to issue the annual cable outlining activities for embassies commemorating Pride Month.

In January 2016, Tammy Baldwin was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Thad Cochran and Barbara Mikulski requesting that the Labor, Health and Education subcommittee hold a hearing on whether to allow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to fund a study of gun violence and "the annual appropriations rider that some have interpreted as preventing it" with taxpayer dollars.

In November 2017, Tammy Baldwin was a cosponsor of the Military Domestic Violence Reporting Enhancement Act, a bill to create a charge of domestic violence under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and stipulate that convictions must be reported to federal databases to keep abusers from purchasing firearms within three days in an attempt to close a loophole in the UCMJ whereby convicted abusers retain the ability to purchase firearms.

In 2018, Tammy Baldwin was a cosponsor of the NICS Denial Notification Act, legislation developed in the aftermath of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting that would require federal authorities to inform states within a day after a person failing the National Instant Criminal Background Check System attempted to buy a firearm.

Tammy Baldwin is a third cousin of comedian and actor Andy Samberg.

Tammy Baldwin was baptized Episcopalian but considers herself "unaffiliated" with a religion.