Rep. Barbara Lee (D)

The congresswoman from the 9th District is Barbara Lee, a Democrat who won an April 1998 special election. Lee spent her childhood in Texas and says her political thinking was shaped by her early exposure to race discrimination. While in labor with her, Lee’s mother was at first denied treatment at an El Paso hospital. Lee attended a segregated school in that city until her parents sent their children to a Catholic school. In 1960, the family moved to Southern California, where Lee was the first black cheerleader in her high school, a distinction she won after enlisting the help of the local chapter of the NAACP. In 2008, Lee authored a memoir, Renegade for Peace and Justice, in which she discussed her experiences as a single welfare mother raising two children while attending college, and her early days of social advocacy. “In order to go the policy front, I had to do the personal,” she said. Lee graduated from Mills College in Oakland and got a degree in social work at the University of California at Berkeley. She started a community mental health center in Berkeley and then worked as a staffer for 12 years for Rep. Dellums, who chaired the House Armed Services Committee. She was elected to the California Assembly in 1990 and to the Senate in 1996. After Dellums announced he was resigning, he endorsed Lee as his successor, and she won the special election with 67% of the vote.

In the House, Lee is at the far left of the ideological spectrum. She wants to reduce the nation’s weapons stockpiles and cut Pentagon spending sharply. She supports increased funding for international AIDS programs, and after a visit to Cuba, called for steps to end the 40-year trade embargo; the House accepted her amendment to lift restrictions on education travel to Cuba. As co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, she laid out an agenda with three priorities: economic justice and security, protection of civil rights and liberties, and promotion of global peace. She was a founder of the Out of Iraq Caucus, a group of the most vocal anti-war House members.

Lee has consistently opposed military action to the point of being a lonely but principled voice. She criticized President Clinton’s bombing of Iraq in 1998. As most Democrats voted to authorize bombing of Serbia in 1999, Lee was the only House member to oppose a resolution supporting U.S. troops. In September 2001, she was the only member of Congress to vote against the resolution authorizing the use of force in response to the terrorist attacks. “If we rush to launch a counterattack, we run too great a risk that women, children, and other noncombatants will be caught in the crossfire,” she said at the time. Her vote brought a torrent of national attention. Lee received threats of violence, and the Capitol police provided her with 24-hour protection. But there were supportive rallies in her district. During debate in October 2002 to authorize the use of force in Iraq, Lee offered an alternative calling for diplomatic action; it was defeated 355-72.

In 2008, Lee became chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, with plans to “really continue to be the conscience of the Congress.” In February 2009, she criticized Senate cuts in the House-passed version of President Obama’s economic stimulus bill. When Obama named conservative Republican Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire as Commerce secretary, Lee was among the African-American leaders who complained about his past failure to support a full census count, especially of racial minorities. Gregg later withdrew as a nominee.

In 2007, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave Lee a seat on the powerful Appropriations Committee. She was the only Democrat on the panel to vote against the withdrawal timetable assembled by Democratic leaders; then she was one of 14 Democrats to vote against the funding bill on the House floor. “My conscience is that we can’t put up more money to fund this war,” said Lee, who supported what she called “a fully funded withdrawal.” In July 2008, the House passed, 399-24, Lee’s bill to prevent permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq or U.S. control of Iraqi oil. The House also passed her bill to encourage states to divest from companies that do business in Sudan, as a protest of the genocide in the Darfur region.