The congresswoman from the 12th is Jackie Speier (SPEER), a Democrat who won a special election in April 2008 to succeed Tom Lantos, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who died during his 14th term in office. Born in San Francisco’s Sunset district, she graduated from the University of California at Davis and got her law degree at U.C.’s Hastings College of Law. While an undergraduate, she interned in Sacramento for Democratic Assemblyman Leo Ryan and later joined his staff after he was elected to Congress. In November 1978, Speier accompanied third-term Rep. Ryan on a trip to Jonestown, Guyana, to investigate claims that some of Ryan’s constituents, who were members of a church called the Peoples Temple, were being held against their will by the Rev. Jim Jones of San Francisco. Some defectors from the church joined Ryan’s entourage for the journey home, but the group made it only as far as the airport. Four assassins sent by Jones opened fire on the defenseless group. Ryan and four others, including two journalists, were killed. Speier was shot five times and left for dead on the airstrip, where she waited 15 hours before the Guyana police rescued her. In the meantime, Jones, back at his jungle camp, set in motion events that shocked the world. He forced his cult followers to commit “revolutionary suicide” by drinking poison-laced punch, which resulted in the deaths of more than 900 followers, some of them babies and children. Read More

The congresswoman from the 12th is Jackie Speier (SPEER), a Democrat who won a special election in April 2008 to succeed Tom Lantos, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who died during his 14th term in office. Born in San Francisco’s Sunset district, she graduated from the University of California at Davis and got her law degree at U.C.’s Hastings College of Law. While an undergraduate, she interned in Sacramento for Democratic Assemblyman Leo Ryan and later joined his staff after he was elected to Congress. In November 1978, Speier accompanied third-term Rep. Ryan on a trip to Jonestown, Guyana, to investigate claims that some of Ryan’s constituents, who were members of a church called the Peoples Temple, were being held against their will by the Rev. Jim Jones of San Francisco. Some defectors from the church joined Ryan’s entourage for the journey home, but the group made it only as far as the airport. Four assassins sent by Jones opened fire on the defenseless group. Ryan and four others, including two journalists, were killed. Speier was shot five times and left for dead on the airstrip, where she waited 15 hours before the Guyana police rescued her. In the meantime, Jones, back at his jungle camp, set in motion events that shocked the world. He forced his cult followers to commit “revolutionary suicide” by drinking poison-laced punch, which resulted in the deaths of more than 900 followers, some of them babies and children.

Once back in California, Speier underwent 10 surgeries, including skin grafts. Despite her injuries, she ran in the special election to succeed Ryan, but she got only 15% of the total vote and finished third among Democrats in the primary. She returned to the Bay Area and built her political career, starting on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors and then serving 18 years in the Legislature. Her pinnacle achievement was legislation protecting consumers’ privacy from invasive practices by banks and insurance companies. In 2006, she unsuccessfully sought the nomination for lieutenant governor.

When Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor to serve in Congress, announced his retirement in early January 2008, he endorsed Speier as his successor. He died in February of complications from cancer of the esophagus. Speier immediately became the front-runner. Stanford University law professor Larry Lessig, who has crusaded against the influence of money in politics, briefly considered a challenge, but candidly conceded that he would probably have lost to Speier. She won the all-party election with 75% of the vote against four little-known opponents.

In the House, Speier quickly established her mark as an ardent and sometimes outspoken liberal. Immediately after she took her oath of office, she caused a ruckus when she launched a sharp partisan attack on President George W. Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq. “History will not judge us kindly if we sacrifice four generations of Americans because of the folly of one,” she declared. Her remarks triggered a volley of boos among Republican members on the floor and prompted Republican Rep. Darrell Issa of California to walk out of the chamber, claiming she had violated House rules of decorum. Speier responded that she had been “forthright.” Later, in March 2010, Speier joined 59 other Democrats in voting for a resolution requiring the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

In February 2011, during a House floor debate over funding for abortion providers, Speier emotionally discussed her own experience with abortion. She said that she had to terminate a wanted pregnancy in the second trimester due to a serious medical complication, and suggested that ardent anti-abortion rights Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., was mischaracterizing the procedure she underwent. “For you to stand on this floor and to suggest, as you have, that somehow this is a procedure that is either welcomed or done cavalierly or done without any thought is preposterous,” Speier said. She later told MSNBC, “It’s time we stop demonizing women who have to endure this procedure,” which she described as a D&C, the common term for “dilation and curettage.”

In other highlights of her first term, Speier called for a national speed limit of 60 miles per hour on freeways in urban areas to reduce gasoline consumption. On the Financial Services Committee, her opposition scuttled a bipartisan 2008 proposal to create an office of insurance information in the Treasury Department. She objected that the measure could pre-empt state laws that limit rate increases. During debate on a major financial services regulatory bill in 2009, Speier passed in the House an amendment requiring big banks to have at least $1 in capital for every $15 in assets. In the final bill, lawmakers watered down the requirement, giving federal regulators the option of enforcing the limit only if a firm posed a “grave threat” to financial stability.

In February 2009, Speier joined 20 mostly moderate House Democrats who voted against the omnibus spending bill because it was chock full of earmarks for individual lawmakers’ districts. She created her own citizens’ panel to review congressional earmarks and chose Lessig to chair it. But Speier has not completely eschewed directing money to her own district. In April 2010, she sponsored a bill with other Bay Area lawmakers authorizing $100 million to clean up the San Francisco Bay.

Speier considered running for state attorney general in 2010, but opted to stay in the House, easily winning re-election.