BioCongresswoman Marcy Kaptur enthusiastically represents the working people of Ohio's Ninth Congressional District. She is currently the longest serving woman in the history of Congress and ranks among the most senior Members of the 119th Congress.
Congresswoman Kaptur, a native Toledoan, lives in the same modest house where she grew up.
She is a Polish-American with humble, working class roots. Her family operated a small grocery store and her mother later served on the original organizing committee of a trade union at the Champion Spark Plug factory in Toledo.
After graduating from St. Ursula Academy, she became the first member of her family to attend college, earning a bachelor's degree in history from the University of Wisconsin (1968) and later a master's degree in urban planning from the University of Michigan.
After working for 15 years as a city and regional planner, primarily in Toledo and Chicago, she accepted an appointment as a domestic policy advisor to President Jimmy Carter. During his Administration, she helped maneuver 17 housing and neighborhood revitalization bills through Congress.
In 1981, while pursuing a doctorate in urban planning and development finance at MIT, she was recruited by the Lucas County Democratic Party to run for Congress against a first-term Republican. Although she was outspent by a 3-to-1 margin, Kaptur parlayed a strong economic message during the 1982 recession to stage a nationally-recognized upset.
In Washington, Kaptur fought vigorously to win a seat on the House Appropriations Committee. Today she serves as the first woman to serve as Ranking Member of the influential House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, which she considers an honor given the Ninth District stretches much of the southern Lake Erie coastline.
In 1993, Congresswoman Kaptur was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree by the University of Toledo in recognition of her "effective representation of the community." St. Ursula Academy named Kaptur Alumna of the Year in 1995.
She is recipient of the Taubman College Distinguished Alumna award from the University of Michigan, making her the first woman so recognized and the first graduate of the Urban and Regional Planning Program to be so honored. Kaptur recently received the Director's Award from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University for her commitment to increased understanding and appreciation of the peoples and cultures of Eurasia, Russia and East Europe.
She was named the National Mental Health Association's "Legislator of the Year" for her championing mental health and received the 2002 Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
Kaptur is also the author of a book, Women in Congress- A Twentieth Century Odyssey, that was published by Congressional Quarterly in 1996.
Dedicated to the principle that fiscal responsibility begins in "one's own backyard" Congresswoman Kaptur has consistently returned money to the federal Treasury. She refuses to accept Congressional pay raises and donates them to offset the federal deficit and charitable causes in her home community.
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