The congresswoman from the 1st District is Diana DeGette, a Democrat first elected in 1996. She is a fourth-generation resident of Denver, though she was born on a military base in Japan. DeGette (de GET) says that she was inspired at age 13 by the television show Storefront Lawyers to “crusade for justice,” and decided she would be a public interest lawyer. She attended New York University’s law school on a full scholarship, and then returned to Denver to practice employment law. In 1992, at age 35, DeGette was elected to the Colorado House. Her signature accomplishment was the Bubble Bill, which was aimed at protecting women at abortion clinics by making it illegal for protesters to come within eight feet of a person entering or leaving a health care facility. DeGette worked across the aisle with Republicans in the legislature to overcome the efforts by the GOP majority leadership to kill the bill. The legal battle over its constitutionality eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld the law in a 6-3 decision. In 1995, when U.S. Rep. Patricia Schroeder, a pioneer of the feminist left, announced she was retiring after 24 years in the U.S. House, DeGette decided to run for the seat. Organizationally adept, legislatively creative and politically liberal, she proved a worthy successor to Schroeder, one of the most well-known figures in Colorado politics. Read More

The congresswoman from the 1st District is Diana DeGette, a Democrat first elected in 1996. She is a fourth-generation resident of Denver, though she was born on a military base in Japan. DeGette (de GET) says that she was inspired at age 13 by the television show Storefront Lawyers to “crusade for justice,” and decided she would be a public interest lawyer. She attended New York University’s law school on a full scholarship, and then returned to Denver to practice employment law. In 1992, at age 35, DeGette was elected to the Colorado House. Her signature accomplishment was the Bubble Bill, which was aimed at protecting women at abortion clinics by making it illegal for protesters to come within eight feet of a person entering or leaving a health care facility. DeGette worked across the aisle with Republicans in the legislature to overcome the efforts by the GOP majority leadership to kill the bill. The legal battle over its constitutionality eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld the law in a 6-3 decision. In 1995, when U.S. Rep. Patricia Schroeder, a pioneer of the feminist left, announced she was retiring after 24 years in the U.S. House, DeGette decided to run for the seat. Organizationally adept, legislatively creative and politically liberal, she proved a worthy successor to Schroeder, one of the most well-known figures in Colorado politics.

In both the minority and the majority, she has managed to achieve legislative successes in the House. On the Energy and Commerce Committee, she has focused on health care issues. Teaming with Republican Mike Castle of Delaware, DeGette established a bipartisan coalition to expand federal funds for stem cell research, which employs excess embryos from in vitro fertilization. President George W. Bush opposed more money for such research, but in 2005, DeGette and Castle won majority support in the House, and the Senate passed the bill a year later. Bush vetoed the bill, his first veto as president, and the House fell 51 votes short of an override. In 2007, after Democrats won majority control of Congress, her bill passed again, but was still short the two-thirds necessary to override Bush’s veto. Ultimately, President Obama removed most federal restrictions on stem cell research in 2009. In August 2010, a federal judge blocked Obama’s executive order, but an appeals court later lifted the injunction. DeGette says she was inspired to take on the cause after one of her daughters was diagnosed with diabetes at age 4. She wrote a book on the topic in 2008 called Sex, Science, and Stem Cells.

On other health issues, DeGette was a leading advocate for expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. In 2009, she co-sponsored, with her congressional mentor John Dingell, D-Mich., the Food Safety Enhancement Act. She secured two key provisions giving the Food and Drug Administration the power to mandate product recalls and authorizing the FDA to establish a food-tracking system. The bill was passed by the House but stalled in the Senate. Mandatory recall authority for the FDA became law in the Food Safety Modernization Act in 2011.

During the health care overhaul debate in 2009 and 2010, DeGette played a major role in shaping the final abortion provisions in the legislation. In November 2009, she led more than 40 pro-abortion rights Democrats in opposing an abortion restriction that was added to the bill by Democratic leaders to appease Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., and other anti-abortion Democrats. It banned coverage of abortions in any new government-subsidized insurance plans. During negotiations to reconcile the House and Senate bills, Stupak pressed to have his abortion restriction preserved. He and DeGette held their respective ground and the president’s health care agenda stalled. Finally, a compromise was reached in which Stupak agreed to forgo the provision in the bill in exchange for Obama’s promise to sign an executive order reaffirming the law prohibiting the use of federal funds for abortion. DeGette supported the compromise.

DeGette’s legislative skills put her on a leadership track in the House, although she also has been on the losing side of some big internal party battles. On the energy panel, she has helped broker the frequent clashes among the panel’s Democrats. But she had to rebuild some of those relationships after the bitter fight between Dingell and California Rep. Henry Waxman for the chairmanship in late 2008. DeGette backed Dingell, but Waxman won. In 2001, DeGette supported Maryland’s Steny Hoyer in his unsuccessful bid for Democratic whip against California’s Nancy Pelosi, who went on to become speaker of the House. When Hoyer eventually got the job as party whip in 2002, Hoyer added DeGette to his whip team, and she moved into the role of party strategist.

When Democrats gained control of the House in 2007, Hoyer decided to run for majority leader, and DeGette seriously considered running to succeed him as whip against South Carolina’s James Clyburn. She said she ultimately decided that it would have been disruptive to have another internal struggle at the same time Pennsylvania’s John Murtha was challenging Hoyer for the majority leader’s post. Clyburn made DeGette his chief deputy whip, putting her in position to take over as whip should Clyburn retire or step down for any reason. “If the opportunity arose I would love to be whip,” DeGette told National Journal. “I love to whip!”

As a mother of two children, who were just 2 and 6 years old when she was elected, DeGette tries to help newer members of Congress with children find a balance between family and public life. She advises newcomers to “carve out family time” because while service in Congress is finite, family relationships last a lifetime. One of the ways DeGette finds family time is through her love of sports. The family has season tickets to the Denver Broncos and the Colorado Rockies.

In 2002, DeGette fared impressively against credible primary and general election opponents. Ramona Martinez, a 15-year member of the Denver City Council and a Democratic National Committeewoman, criticized her for having lost touch with the district. DeGette returned her family to Denver from the Maryland suburbs in 2001 and won by an unexpectedly large 73%-27% split. That November, she faced Republican Ken Chlouber, a rural state senator known for folksy humor and a flame-painted pickup truck. He also had the Teamsters union endorsement. Still, DeGette won 66%-30% and has not been seriously challenged since.