Tammy Baldwin is a lawyer and politician who has served as the junior United States senator from Wisconsin since 2013. She is the first woman from Wisconsin to be elected to Congress and the first to be openly gay at the time of election. She identifies as a progressive and has voted accordingly, supporting Medicare for All, LGBTQ+ rights, and gun control and opposing the Iraq War.

Baldwin was born and grew up in Madison, Wisconsin. Her mother struggled with mental illness, chronic pain, and opioid addiction. Because of that, her grandparents, a biochemist at the University of Wisconsin and a talented seamstress and head costume designer in the UW Theater Department, raised her.

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As a child, Baldwin suffered from a serious illness similar to spinal meningitis. After recovering, she was labeled as having a “pre-existing condition,” making it nearly impossible for her grandparents to secure any kind of insurance for her at any price. Baldwin would later use this experience as a driving force behind her support for important reforms to the Affordable Care Act, pushing to allow children to stay on their parents’ insurance plans until they are 26.

Baldwin earned her bachelor’s degree from Smith College in 1984 and her doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1989. She was a lawyer in private practice from 1989 to 1992. During her second semester of law school, Tammy was elected to the Dane County Board of Supervisors, where she served four terms. She was then elected to the Wisconsin State Assembly as a representative for the 78th District in 1992 and served three terms.

During her seven terms in the House of Representatives, Baldwin was an advocate for middle-class economic security and healthcare and voted against allowing Wall Street and big banks to write their own policies. In November 2022, she guided the Respect for Marriage Act, a bill supporting same-sex marriage, through the Senate.

Baldwin now serves on the Senate’s Appropriations Committee; the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee; and the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. Her current term ends on January 3, 2025.