| U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar is the first woman elected to represent the State of Minnesota in the United States Senate. Throughout her public service, Senator Klobuchar has always embraced the values she learned growing up in Minnesota. Her grandfather worked 1500 feet underground in the iron ore mines of Northern Minnesota. Her father, Jim, was a newspaperman, and her mother, Rose, was an elementary school teacher who continued teaching until she was 70.
As a member of the Joint Economic Committee and the Senate Commerce Committee, Senator Klobuchar has been a leader in working to implement a competitive agenda to ensure businesses have the tools they need to grow and create good jobs in their communities and support them during the pandemic. She has authored legislation to lift the trade embargo with Cuba as well as legislation to help small businesses tap into new markets abroad and foster the creation and growth of new businesses across the country. She has successfully advocated to take action to combat illegal steel dumping. As co-chair of the Senate Broadband Caucus, Senator Klobuchar has been a leading advocate working to connect every American to high speed internet once and for all. She has also passed significant legislation aimed at boosting funds for STEM education and led national initiatives to boost American tourism, including a long-term reauthorization of Brand USA, which helps attract international travelers to destinations throughout the United States.
Senator Klobuchar also serves as the Chairwoman on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, where she has worked to reinvigorate America's antitrust laws and restore competition to American markets. In this capacity, she introduced legislation to give federal enforcers the resources they need to do their jobs, strengthen prohibitions on anticompetitive conduct and mergers, and make additional reforms to improve enforcement. As The Washington Post recently noted, "The moderate but meaningful proposals provide a launchpad for cross-aisle cooperation, a goal of much of the senator's legislative handiwork." She has also introduced bipartisan legislation to lower prescription drug prices by cracking down on "pay-for-delay" agreements, the practice of brand-name drug manufacturers using pay-off agreements to keep more affordable generic equivalents off the market.
Senator Klobuchar is also the Chairwoman of the Senate Rules Committee, where she has worked to ensure fairness, transparency, and efficiency in government. During a Joint Session of Congress to receive each state's electoral votes in the 2020 presidential election, she led the defense of challenges to Arizona's and Pennsylvania's electoral votes, working with a bipartisan group of her colleagues to stand up for our democracy.
As a leader on election legislation, along with then Rules Committee Chair Senator Blunt, she led the successful inauguration of Joe Biden at a critical time. She helped pass the most sweeping ethics reform since Watergate and has authored legislation to automatically register eligible voters when they turn 18. She has also led efforts to improve election security and prevent foreign interference in our democracy, and successfully secured $1.2 billion to strengthen states' election infrastructure and help protect them from future attacks by foreign adversaries. In addition, in her role on the Judiciary Committee she has been active in advocating for legislation focused on civil rights, criminal justice, and immigration reform.
As a member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, Senator Klobuchar has worked on behalf of Minnesota's farmers, agriculture workers, and rural communities by fighting to expand access to broadband, support food assistance programs, and provide coronavirus relief to livestock producers. She has also introduced legislation to encourage the use of renewable fuels and invest in data related to farming and agriculture to inform best practices.
Before serving in the Senate, Senator Klobuchar headed the largest prosecutor's office in Minnesota for eight years, making the prosecution of violent criminals her top priority while increasing the office's focus on white collar crime. She led the effort for successful passage of Minnesota's first felony DWI law and received the leadership award from Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Her safe schools initiative, community prosecution efforts, and criminal justice reforms earned national awards from both the Bush and Clinton Justice Departments. She worked with the Innocence Project to advocate for videotaped interrogations across the country as well as innovative eyewitness processes to protect against false identifications. As a private citizen and before being elected to public office, Senator Klobuchar was the leading advocate for successful passage of one of the first laws in the country guaranteeing 48-hour hospital stays for new moms and their babies.
Senator Klobuchar was the valedictorian of her Wayzata High School class. She graduated magna cum laude from Yale University and the University of Chicago Law School. Her senior essay in college, published as the book "Uncovering the Dome" chronicles the 10-year-history behind the building of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome and is still used at colleges and universities across the country.
Senator Klobuchar is married to John Bessler, a native of Mankato, who attended Loyola High School and the University of Minnesota. Senator Klobuchar and John have a daughter, Abigail. |