1. Tillie Kidd Fowler was an American lawyer and politician who served in the United States House of Representatives from Florida's 4th congressional district from 1993 to 2001.
24 Facts About Tillie Fowler
1. 2.
Tillie Fowler graduated from Salem Academy in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1960 before earning her undergraduate degree from Emory University, where she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta, in 1964.
3.
Tillie Fowler earned a Juris Doctor degree from the Emory University School of Law three years later.
4.
Tillie Fowler's father had encouraged her to attend law school because she was a fairly outspoken woman by the standards of the time.
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Tillie Fowler was admitted to the bar soon after getting her degree.
6.
Tillie Fowler then worked as general counsel in the White House Office of Consumer Affairs until 1971.
7.
In 1968, she married L Buck Fowler and moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where she changed her party affiliation from Democrat to Republican, to her father's chagrin.
8.
Tillie Fowler was active in volunteer activities and the area Junior League, serving as the Jacksonville chapter's president from 1982 to 1983, and was elected to the Jacksonville City Council in 1985.
9.
In 1992, Tillie Fowler won the Republican nomination for Florida's 4th Congressional District in Jacksonville.
10.
Early on, Tillie Fowler hammered Bennett for having been in Congress for too long and promised to serve no more than four terms in the House.
11.
Tillie Fowler became only the third person to represent the 4th since it was created in 1943, and the first Republican.
12.
Tillie Fowler was the first Florida Republican woman elected to the House in her own right.
13.
Tillie Fowler was moderately pro-choice on abortion and refused to take money from the National Rifle Association of America.
14.
Tillie Fowler tried to head off the shutdown of the naval firing range at Vieques, but was unsuccessful.
15.
Unlike most Republicans elected to Congress during the 1990s, Tillie Fowler had very good relations with Democrats.
16.
Tillie Fowler was one of the few Republicans active in the Congressional Women's Caucus, and refused to campaign against incumbents with whom she had friendly relations.
17.
Tillie Fowler was an ardent feminist, vociferously protesting an article in Roll Call in which a picture of Republican women at a press conference only showed their legs and black pumps.
18.
Tillie Fowler hired Stephanie Kopelousos as an intern in 1993; by 1998 Kopelousos was a senior legislative aide.
19.
Tillie Fowler eventually rose to vice-chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, the number-five position among House Republicans.
20.
Tillie Fowler came under considerable fire from term limits proponents.
21.
Tillie Fowler served as an advisor to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on operational issues.
22.
Tillie Fowler frequently lobbied her former colleagues on behalf of Jacksonville during debate over military base realignment and closures.
23.
In 2001, Tillie Fowler was appointed by Congress to the Commission on the Future of the United States Aerospace Industry.
24.
Tillie Fowler died on March 2,2005, of a brain hemorrhage in a hospital in Jacksonville, Florida.