Kirsten Gillibrand
Kirsten Elizabeth Gillibrand (née Rutnik;[2] /ˈkɪərstən ˈdʒɪlɪbrænd/ ⓘ KEER-stən JIL-ib-rand; born December 9, 1966) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from New York since 2009. A member of the Democratic Party, she served as member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2007 to 2009.
"Gillibrand" redirects here. For the surname, see Gillibrand (surname).
Kirsten Gillibrand
2
Albany, New York, U.S.
Born and raised in upstate New York, Gillibrand graduated from Dartmouth College and from the UCLA School of Law. After holding positions in government and private practice and working on Hillary Clinton's 2000 U.S. Senate campaign, Gillibrand was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 2006. She represented New York's 20th congressional district and was reelected in 2008. During her House tenure, Gillibrand was a Blue Dog Democrat noted for voting against the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.
After Clinton was appointed U.S. Secretary of State in 2009, Governor David Paterson selected Gillibrand to fill the Senate seat Clinton had vacated, making her New York's second female senator. Gillibrand won a special election in 2010 to keep the seat, and was reelected to full terms in 2012 and 2018. During her Senate tenure, Gillibrand has shifted to the left. She has been outspoken on sexual assault in the military and sexual harassment, having criticized President Bill Clinton, Senator Al Franken, and Governor Andrew Cuomo, all fellow Democrats, for alleged sexual misconduct. She supports paid family leave, a federal jobs guarantee, and the abolition and replacement of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Gillibrand ran for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States in 2020, officially announcing her candidacy on March 17, 2019. After failing to qualify for the third debate, she withdrew from the race on August 28, 2019.
Early life and education
Kirsten Elizabeth Rutnik was born on December 9, 1966, in Albany, New York, the daughter of Polly Edwina (Noonan) and Douglas Paul Rutnik.[2] Both her parents are attorneys, and her father has also worked as a lobbyist.[3] Her parents divorced in the late 1980s.[4] Douglas Rutnik is an associate of former U.S. Senator Al D'Amato.[5] Gillibrand has an older brother and a younger sister.[6][7] Her maternal grandparents were businessman Peter Noonan and Dorothea "Polly" Noonan,[7] a founder of the Albany Democratic Women's Club and a leader of the city's Democratic political machine.[8][5][3][6] Gillibrand has English, Austrian, Scottish, German, and Irish ancestry.[9]
Polly Noonan was a longtime confidante of Erastus Corning 2nd, the longtime mayor of Albany, New York.[8][5][3][6] In Off the Sidelines, her 2014 memoir, Gillibrand said that Corning "was simply part of our family... He appeared at every family birthday party with the most fantastic present". Gillibrand wrote that she did not know that the ambiguous relationship between her married grandmother and the married Corning "was strange" until she grew up, adding that Corning "may have been in love with my grandmother", but that he also loved her grandmother's entire family.[10] According to The New York Times, Corning, "in effect, disinherited his wife and children" and "left the Noonan family his insurance business".[5][Note 1]
During her childhood and college years, Gillibrand used the nickname "Tina";[11] she began using her birth name a few years after law school.[6] In 1984, she graduated from Emma Willard School, an all-women's private school in Troy, New York,[12] and then enrolled at Dartmouth College.[6] Gillibrand majored in Asian Studies, studying in both Beijing and Taiwan. In Beijing, she studied and lived with actress Connie Britton at Beijing Normal University.[13][14][15] Gillibrand graduated magna cum laude in 1988.[16] At Dartmouth, she was a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority.[16] During college, Gillibrand interned at Senator Al D'Amato's Albany office.[17] She received her J.D. from UCLA School of Law and passed the bar exam in 1991.[18]
Legal career
Private practice
In 1991, Gillibrand joined the Manhattan-based law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell as an associate.[4] In 1992, she took a leave from Davis Polk to serve as a law clerk to Judge Roger Miner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Albany.[7][19]
Gillibrand's tenure at Davis Polk included serving as a defense attorney for tobacco company Philip Morris during major litigation, including both civil lawsuits and U.S. Justice Department criminal and civil racketeering and perjury probes.[20] As a junior associate in the mid-1990s, she defended the company's executives against a criminal investigation into whether they had committed perjury in their testimony before Congress when they claimed that they had no knowledge of a connection between tobacco smoking and cancer. Gillibrand worked closely on the case and became a key part of the defense team.[20] As part of her work, she traveled to the company's laboratory in Germany, where she interviewed scientists about the company's alleged research into the connection. The inquiry was dropped and it was during this time that she became a senior associate.[21][20]
While working at Davis Polk, Gillibrand became involved in—and later the leader of—the Women's Leadership Forum, a program of the Democratic National Committee. Gillibrand has said that a speech to the group by Hillary Clinton inspired her: "[Clinton] was trying to encourage us to become more active in politics and she said, 'If you leave all the decision-making to others, you might not like what they do, and you will have no one but yourself to blame.' It was such a challenge to the women in the room. And it really hit me: She's talking to me."[4]
In 2001, Gillibrand became a partner in the Manhattan office of Boies, Schiller & Flexner. In 2002 she informed Boies of her interest in running for office and was permitted to transfer to the firm's Albany office. She left Boies in 2005 to begin her 2006 campaign for Congress.[7][20]
Public interest and government service
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.[7] After her time at Davis Polk, she served as Special Counsel to Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Andrew Cuomo during the last year of the Clinton administration.[12] Gillibrand worked on HUD's Labor Initiative and its New Markets Initiative, on TAP's Young Leaders of the American Democracy, and on strengthening Davis–Bacon Act enforcement.[22]
In 1999, Gillibrand began working on Hillary Clinton's 2000 U.S. Senate campaign, focusing on campaigning to young women and encouraging them to join the effort. Many of those women later worked on Gillibrand's campaigns.[3] She and Clinton became close during the election, with Clinton becoming something of a mentor to her.[7] Gillibrand donated more than $12,000 to Clinton's Senate campaigns.[23]
U.S. Senate
Appointment
On December 1, 2008, President-elect Barack Obama announced his choice of Hillary Clinton, the junior U.S. senator from New York, as Secretary of State. Clinton was confirmed by a vote of 94–2 on January 21, 2009. Just hours before being sworn in as Secretary of State, Clinton resigned her Senate seat, effective immediately. Obama's December announcement began a two-month search to fill her Senate seat.[45] Under New York law, the governor appoints a replacement. A special election would then be held in November 2010 for the remainder of her term, which ended in January 2013.[46]
Published works
In 2014, Gillibrand published her first book, Off the Sidelines: Raise Your Voice, Change the World.[151] The candid memoir was notable in the media upon release due to whisperings of a future presidential run[152] as well as Gillibrand's claims of sexism in the Senate,[153] including specific comments made to her by other members of Congress about her weight and appearance.[154] Off the Sidelines debuted at number 8 on The New York Times Best Seller list for hardcover nonfiction.[155]