The congresswoman from the 3rd District is Rosa DeLauro, first elected in 1990. She is well connected in New Haven and Washington. She grew up in New Haven’s Wooster Square. Both her parents were New Haven aldermen. Her mother, Luisa DeLauro, retired from the Board of Aldermen in 1999 after 35 years, the longest tenure in New Haven history. Rosa DeLauro’s husband, Stanley Greenberg, was Bill Clinton’s chief pollster from 1991 to 1994 and worked for Al Gore’s presidential campaign in 2000 and John Kerry’s in 2004. Former Obama White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, a family friend, officiated at the wedding of Greenburg’s daughter Anna, a political consultant. DeLauro has been in politics nearly all of her life. She was a development administrator in New Haven in the 1970s, chief of staff to Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd from 1980 to 1987, and then spent a year working to stop U.S. military aid to Nicaraguan contras before going on to become director of EMILY’s List, the women’s campaign fundraising group. When 3rd District incumbent Bruce Morrison ran for governor in 1990, DeLauro ran for his seat and won, 52%-48%, over anti-tax and anti-abortion rights state Sen. Tom Scott. Her last serious competition came in 1992, when she won a rematch against Scott, 66%-34%. Read More

The congresswoman from the 3rd District is Rosa DeLauro, first elected in 1990. She is well connected in New Haven and Washington. She grew up in New Haven’s Wooster Square. Both her parents were New Haven aldermen. Her mother, Luisa DeLauro, retired from the Board of Aldermen in 1999 after 35 years, the longest tenure in New Haven history. Rosa DeLauro’s husband, Stanley Greenberg, was Bill Clinton’s chief pollster from 1991 to 1994 and worked for Al Gore’s presidential campaign in 2000 and John Kerry’s in 2004. Former Obama White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, a family friend, officiated at the wedding of Greenburg’s daughter Anna, a political consultant. DeLauro has been in politics nearly all of her life. She was a development administrator in New Haven in the 1970s, chief of staff to Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd from 1980 to 1987, and then spent a year working to stop U.S. military aid to Nicaraguan contras before going on to become director of EMILY’s List, the women’s campaign fundraising group. When 3rd District incumbent Bruce Morrison ran for governor in 1990, DeLauro ran for his seat and won, 52%-48%, over anti-tax and anti-abortion rights state Sen. Tom Scott. Her last serious competition came in 1992, when she won a rematch against Scott, 66%-34%.

DeLauro has a consistently liberal voting record, is a close ally of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and is one of the Democratic leadership’s most vocal champions in debate. She is an active and ardent supporter of feminist issues. A cancer survivor, she sponsored the law to require that patients and doctors, not insurance companies, decide on 48-hour hospital stays for mastectomies. She also lobbied for insurance coverage of early-detection tests for cervical cancer, and helped to enact “Johanna’s Law” to increase awareness of gynecological cancers. In 2009, she introduced a bill to require employers to give workers seven paid sick days annually. Also that year, the House passed her Paycheck Fairness Act, which provided remedies to victims of wage discrimination. A similar bill, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, was signed into law, reversing a Supreme Court decision that had made it more difficult to ensure that women and men doing the same job are paid comparable wages.

As chairperson from 2007 to 2010 of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies, DeLauro took a keen interest in food safety, which she said should have the same priority as prescription drug and medical device safety. Her subcommittee in 2008 increased by $1.8 billion President George W. Bush’s funding request for the FDA. But she said a year later that the agency remained “badly broken,” and faulted the Obama administration for not doing enough to address food safety in its fiscal 2010 budget, which had 19% more funding for the agency. After the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released figures in late 2010 showing that food-borne disease remained a public health threat, she introduced a bill to create a single agency to regulate the food supply.

As a political strategist and advocate of Democratic causes, DeLauro is “a live wire whose words rush out like sparks,” as a New York Times profile described her. In November 2009, as Pelosi reluctantly announced her support for an amendment strictly limiting insurance coverage for abortions as part of the health care overhaul, DeLauro reportedly got into an angry confrontation with California Rep. George Miller, another trusted Pelosi ally who called for more pragmatism. When home-state Senate colleague Joe Lieberman, a political independent, held up the legislation a month later, DeLauro demanded that Lieberman be recalled.

DeLauro has run twice for chair of the Democratic Caucus and suffered two painfully close losses. In 1998, she lost 108-97 to Martin Frost of Texas, but then Minority Leader Dick Gephardt named her an assistant leader in charge of the party’s message. In 2002, she lost 104-103 to Robert Menendez of New Jersey after an intense yearlong contest. DeLauro has been an active supporter of Pelosi in her leadership races through the years, which helped cement the bond between the two Italian-American liberal women. Pelosi has leaned on DeLauro for important appointive leadership roles and made her co-chair of the Democratic Steering Committee, a powerful panel that makes committee assignments. In 2007, DeLauro also became a vice chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the House Democrats’ fundraising and recruiting arm. Three years earlier, DeLauro led the drafting of the Democratic platform when John Kerry was nominated for president.

She has expressed interest in running for the Senate, an option that could become increasingly attractive to her if Republicans retain majority control in coming elections, crimping her influence in the House. In addition, with Lieberman’s announcement that he will not seek re-election in 2012, there will be an open Senate seat.