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Hillary was raised in a middle-class family in the middle of America. From
that classic suburban childhood in Park Ridge, Illinois, Hillary went on to
become one of America's foremost advocates for children and families; an
attorney twice voted one of the most influential in America; a First Lady of
Arkansas who helped transform the schools; a bestselling author; a First
Lady for America who helped transform that role, becoming a champion for
health care and families at home and a champion of women's rights and human
rights around the world.
Since her path-breaking election to the United States Senate, Hillary has
been a steadfast advocate for middle-class families, working to help create
jobs, expand children's health care and protect Social Security from
privatization. As the Senator representing New York after 9/11, Hillary has
fought to strengthen our approach to homeland security and to improve our
communications and intelligence operations. As the first New Yorker ever
named to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Hillary has been a tough
critic of the administration's bungling of Iraq and a fierce advocate for
proper equipment, health benefits, and treatment for military families.
The promise of America was very real as Hillary was growing up. She learned
that no matter who you are or where you're from, if you worked hard and
played by the rules, you could provide a good life for your family.
Hillary's father, Hugh Rodham, was the son of a factory worker from
Scranton, Pennsylvania. He trained sailors in the Navy during World War II
and then returned to Illinois to start a small business selling draperies.
He taught Hillary both a deep sense of patriotism and a strong belief in
fiscal responsibility. He never took a dime of credit and was so frugal that
he used to turn the heat off overnight during the winter to save money,
waking up early to turn it back on so the house would be warm when everyone
woke up.
Hillary's mother, Dorothy, the daughter of a firefighter, had a tough
childhood. Her parents were young and felt unable to care for their
children. So when Dorothy was just eight, she and her three-year-old sister
traveled alone on a four-day train ride to Los Angeles. There they were
raised by a strict grandmother. It was not until Dorothy was a teenager and
worked as a helper to another family that she finally knew what a loving
family could be. The stories of her mother's difficult childhood imbued in
Hillary a fierce sense of justice and a belief that no child should be
mistreated and that every child deserves to be loved.
The life that Hugh and Dorothy created for Hillary and her two brothers was
a classic 1950s middle-class suburban childhood. Park Ridge in those days
was the kind of place where everyone left their doors unlocked and the
neighborhood kids all played on the block together. Hillary was a Brownie
and then a Girl Scout. She started her political life as a Republican, like
her father. She even volunteered as a Goldwater girl!
Faith was central to her family. Her mother taught Sunday school, and
Hillary was a regular in her church youth group. She was deeply influenced
by her youth minister who taught her about "faith in action." There were
trips to the inner city, babysitting for the children of migrant farm
workers, and an extraordinary night when Hillary was fourteen and her youth
group went to hear a speech by Martin Luther King Jr.
Hillary went to Wellesley College, where she was chosen by her classmates to
be the first-ever student commencement speaker. She talked about the
tumultuous times that her generation was living through and said, "The
challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to
be impossible, possible."
Next came Yale Law School, where Hillary focused on questions about how the
law affected children and began her decades of work as an advocate for
children and families. As a law student, Hillary represented foster children
and parents in family court and worked on some of the earliest studies
creating legal standards for identifying and protecting abused children.
Following graduation, she became a staff attorney for the Children's Defense
Fund.
After serving as only one of two women lawyers on the staff of the House
Judiciary Committee considering the impeachment of Richard Nixon, Hillary
chose not to pursue offers from major law firms. Instead she followed her
heart and a man named Bill Clinton to Arkansas. They married in 1975 and
their daughter Chelsea was born in 1980.
Hillary ran a legal aid clinic for the poor when she first got to Arkansas
and handled cases of foster care and child abuse. Years later, she organized
a group called Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. When she was
just 30, President Carter appointed her to the board of the United States
Legal Services Corporation, a federal nonprofit program that funds legal
assistance for the poor.
When Bill was elected Governor of Arkansas, Hillary continued to advocate
for children, leading a task force to improve education in Arkansas through
higher standards for schools and serving on the board of the Arkansas
Children's Hospital, helping them expand and improve their services. She
also served on national boards for the Children's Defense Fund, the Child
Care Action Campaign, and the Children's Television Workshop.
She also continued her legal career as a partner in a law firm. She led the
American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession, which
played a pioneering role in raising awareness of issues like sexual
harassment and equal pay. Hillary was twice named one of the 100 most
influential lawyers in America.
When her husband was elected President in 1992, Hillary's work as a champion
for women was recognized and admired around the world. She traveled the
globe speaking out against the degradation and abuse of women and standing
up for the powerful idea that women's rights are human rights.
In the White House, Hillary led efforts to make adoption easier, to expand
early learning and child care, to increase funding for breast cancer
research, and to help veterans suffering from Gulf War syndrome who had too
often been ignored in the past. She helped launch a national campaign to
prevent teen pregnancy and helped create the Adoption and Safe Families Act
of 1997, which moved children from foster care to adoption more quickly.
Thanks in part to her efforts, the number of children who have moved out of
foster care into adoption has increased dramatically.
As everyone knows, Hillary's fight for universal health coverage did not
succeed. But her commitment to health care for every American has never
wavered. She was instrumental in designing and championing the State
Children's Health Insurance Program, which has provided millions of children
with health insurance. She battled the big drug companies to force them to
test their drugs for children and to make sure all kids get the
immunizations they need through the Vaccines for Children Program.
Immunization rates dramatically improved after the program launched.
Hillary's 1995 book It Takes A Village, about the responsibility we all have
to help children succeed, became an international best seller. Hillary has
donated the proceeds -- more than a million dollars -- to children's causes
across the country.
Hillary's autobiography, Living History, was also a best seller. It has been
translated into 12 languages and sold over 1.3 million copies.
In 2000, Hillary was elected to the United States Senate from New York. As
Senator, Hillary has continued her advocacy for children and families and
has been a national leader on homeland security and national security
issues.
After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Hillary worked with her
colleagues to secure the funds New York needed to recover and rebuild. She
fought to provide compensation to the families of the victims, grants for
hard-hit small businesses, and health care for front line workers at Ground
Zero. And she continues to work for resources that enable New York to grow,
to improve homeland security for New York and other communities, and to
protect all Americans from future attacks.
She is the first New Yorker ever to serve on the Senate Armed Services
Committee, working to see that America's military has the necessary
resources to protect our national security. She has visited troops in Iraq
and Afghanistan and at Fort Drum in New York, home of the 10th Mountain
Division and other New York bases, as well as at Walter Reed Military
Hospital. She has learned first-hand the challenges facing American combat
forces. Hillary passed legislation to track the health status of our troops
so that conditions like Gulf War Syndrome would no longer be misdiagnosed.
She is an original sponsor of legislation that expanded health benefits to
members of the National Guard and Reserves and has been a strong critic of
the Administration's handling of Iraq.
But Hillary has recognized that we can't ignore our problems at home while
we face challenges overseas. She has introduced legislation to tie
Congressional salary increases to an increase in the minimum wage, because
she believes if America's working people don't deserve a raise, neither does
Congress. She has supported a variety of middle-class tax cuts, including
marriage penalty relief, property tax relief, and reduction in the
Alternative Minimum Tax, and supports fiscally responsible pay-as-you-go
budget rules. She helped pass legislation that encouraged investment to
create jobs in struggling communities through the Renewal Communities
program. She has championed legislation to bring broadband Internet access,
which is so important in today's information economy, to rural America.
In the Senate, Hillary has not wavered in her work to expand quality
affordable health care to more Americans. She worked to strengthen the
Children's Health Insurance Program, which increased coverage for children
in low income and working families. She authored legislation that has been
enacted to improve quality and lower the cost of prescription drugs and to
protect our food supply from bioterrorism. She sponsored legislation to
increase America's commitment to fighting the global HIV/AIDS crisis, and is
now leading the fight for expanded use of information technology in the
health care system to decrease administrative costs, lower premiums, and
reduce medical errors.
Her strong advocacy for children continues in the Senate. Some of Hillary's
proudest achievements have been her work to ensure the safety of
prescription drugs for children, with legislation now included in the Best
Pharmaceuticals for Children Act, and her legislation to help schools
address environmental hazards. She has also proposed expanding access to
child care. She has passed legislation that will bring more qualified
teachers into classrooms and more outstanding principals to lead our
schools.
Hillary has been a powerful advocate for women in the Senate. Her commitment
to supporting the rights guaranteed in Roe v. Wade and to reducing the
number of abortions by reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies was
hailed by the New York Times as "frank talk...(and) a promising path."
Hillary is one of the original cosponsors of the Prevention First Act to
increase access to family planning. Her fight with the Bush Administration
ensured that Plan B, an emergency contraceptive, will be available to
millions of American women and will reduce the need for abortions.
Hillary is strongly committed to making sure that every American has the
right to vote in fair, accessible, and credible elections. She introduced
the Count Every Vote Act of 2005 to ensure better protection of votes and to
ensure that every vote is counted.
In 2006, New Yorkers reelected Hillary to the Senate with 67 percent of the
vote. |
