Karen Lorraine Jacqueline Speier  born May 14, 1950) is the U.S. Representative for California's 14th congressional district, serving in Congress since 2008. She is a member of the Democratic Party. The district, numbered as the 12th District from 2008 to 2013, includes the northern two-thirds of San Mateo County and the southwest quarter of San Francisco. She represents much of the territory that had been represented by her political mentor, Leo Ryan.

She is also a former member of the California State Senate who represented parts of San Francisco and San Mateo counties. On April 8, 2008, she won the special election for the vacated United States House of Representatives seat of late Congressman Tom Lantos.

A Caltrain "Baby Bullet" express locomotive is named in her honor.

Speier was born in 1950 in San Francisco, and grew up in an apolitical family, the daughter of Nancy (née Kanchelian) and Manfred "Fred" Speier. Her mother was of Armenian descent and a survivor of the Armenian Genocide, while her father was an immigrant from Germany. Speier took Jacqueline as her confirmation name after Jackie Kennedy. She is a graduate of Mercy High School in Burlingame. She earned a B.A. from the University of California, Davis, and a J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 1976.

Speier's political career began with an unsuccessful run to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Congressman Ryan (the seat she holds now). She lost the Democratic primary to another former Ryan staffer, G. W. "Joe" Holsinger. He lost to the Republican candidate Bill Royer, San Mateo County Supervisor.

Speier won her first election in 1980, when she ran for the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors and defeated a 20-year incumbent. At the time, she was the youngest person ever elected to the board. She was reelected in 1984, and was later selected as chairwoman.

California State Assembly

In 1986, midway through her second term on the Board of Supervisors, Speier ran for the California State Assembly from a district in northern San Mateo County. She won by a few hundred votes. She was reelected five more times, the last time as the nominee of both the Democratic and Republican parties.

State law prevented Speier from running for reelection to the Assembly in 1996, but in 1998 she was elected to the California State Senate. In 2002, she was elected to a second term with 78.2% of the vote. As a state senator, Speier was instrumental in securing $127 million funding to start the "Baby Bullet" express service for Caltrain, for which the commuter rail agency named a new locomotive (no. 925) after her. Speier also focused on representing consumer rights. Senator Speier was termed out of the California State Senate in 2006. Speier served as assistant president pro tempore of the California State Senate during her last term.

In 2006, Speier ran in the Democratic primary for Lieutenant Governor of California against insurance commissioner John Garamendi and state senator Liz Figueroa. In the June 6, 2006 elections, Garamendi defated Speier a close race. Garamendi received 42.5%, Speier received 39.7%, and Figueroa received the remaining 17.8% of the vote.

2008 presidential campaign

Speier endorsed Hillary Clinton's bid for president.

Member of the U.S. House of Representatives

On January 13, 2008, Speier announced she was running in the Democratic primary for the 12th District, Ryan's old district. The seat was being vacated by 14-term incumbent and fellow Democrat Tom Lantos, who announced on January 2, 2008, that he was not seeking re-election. Speier had spent much of 2007 building support to challenge Lantos in the Democratic primary.

On January 17, 2008, Lantos endorsed Speier as his successor. She also picked up endorsements from Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, Congressman Mike Thompson and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Lantos died February 11, 2008. Speier won a special primary election on April 8, 2008 to fill the remainder of his term, which ended in January 2009. She won an outright majority, avoiding a runoff that would have been held on June 3, coinciding with the regular primary election. She was elected to a full term in November with 75 percent of the vote and has been reelected three more times with no substantive opposition.

On July 11, 2008, Speier introduced her first bill, the Gasoline Savings and Speed Limit Reduction Act, which would set a national speed limit of 60 mph in urban areas and 65 mph on less-populated stretches of highway.

In January 2016, during a speech on the House floor Speier announced that she would introduce legislation requiring schools to disclose disciplinary proceedings of faculty.

On August 16, 2017, Speier advocated for the use of the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to remove President Trump from office because of erratic behavior and mental instability "that place the country in great danger"^[21] following his response to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and dealings with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.

In September 2016, Speier proposed a bill to stop sexual abuse and harassment of women in STEM fields known as the Federal Funding Accountability for Sexual Harassers Act.

On October 27, 2017, Speier, as part of the #MeToo movement, posted a video sharing her experience with sexual harassment on Capitol Hill. She said that when she was in her 20's a chief of staff for Representative Leo Ryan, "kissed me and stuck his tongue in my mouth." Speier call the United States Congress a breeding ground for a hostile work environment and she called for more sexual harassment training.

 

 

Oldal: JACKIE SPEIER
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