Ann Kirkpatrick

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Ann Kirkpatrick

Ann Kirkpatrick (born March 14, 1950 in McNary , Arizona ) is an American politician of the Democratic Party . She was a member of the US House of Representatives for Arizona's 1st Congressional District from 2009 to 2011 and from 2013 to 2017 . As a Democratic candidate in the 2016 US Senate election, she was defeated by incumbent John McCain . Since 2019 she has represented Arizona's 2nd congressional electoral district in the US House of Representatives.

Family, education and work

Ann Kirkpatrick grew up in the small community of White River in northeastern Arizona in the field of Indian reservation of the Apaches on. Her parents, the teacher Nancy Cox and the retailer Elliot Kirkpatrick, whose ancestors come from Europe, worked there. Ann Kirkpatrick and her two younger siblings grew up in simple, rural conditions. The family moved to Pinetop-Lakeside in the same county during school , where she attended Blue Ridge High School and was moved to become an attorney by reading a book about civil rights attorney Clarence Darrow . Until 1972 she studied in Tucson at the University of Arizona . As an undergraduate, she took Asian studies and learned Mandarin . After studying law at the law school of this university and being admitted to the bar in 1979, she began to work as such.

In 1980, Kirkpatrick was named assistant district attorney in Coconino County and served in the same Pima County post from 1981 to 1985 . Her focus was on combating domestic violence and sexual offenses. In 1985 she switched to civil law and legally represented the city of Sedona until 1991. She then founded her own law firm with a partner in Flagstaff (Coconino County). In 2004 she taught commercial law and ethics at Coconino Community College .

She is married and has two children from a previous marriage. In January 2020, she announced that she was seeking medical treatment for alcohol addiction .

Political career

After being pushed to the first candidacy for a political mandate because of her good relations with Indians, she ran successfully for the Arizona House of Representatives in 2004 , where she represented a constituency of Flagstaff from 2005 to 2007. Prior to the 2008 congressional election , she was nominated for her party's primary election for the 1st Congressional District of Arizona. The previous holder of this mandate, Rick Renzi of the Republican Party , did not run because of corruption allegations against him. The Republicans nominated Sydney Ann Hay, who was supported by US Senator John McCain , who ran for the US presidency and was defeated by Barack Obama . Despite this prominent support for her opponent, Kirkpatrick won the parliamentary mandate with 56 percent of the vote. She has served on the Homeland Security , Small Business, and Veterans Affairs Committees .

In generally difficult conditions for the Democrats in power during the economic crisis, Kirkpatrick defeated their Republican challenger Paul Gosar in the 2010 election and left Congress on January 3, 2011. In the November 2012 election , she stood again for her previous seat and defeated the Republican Jonathan Patton with 49 to 45 percent of the vote in a presidential election that was won by Barack Obama at the same time and the high turnout was favorable to her. That is why regaining Kirkpatrick's congressional mandate was seen as one of the Republicans' main goals in the November 2014 congressional election , which in turn favored Republicans as a mid-term election. Although the Washington Post estimated her chances of staying in the House of Representatives at just 12 percent before the election, it defeated its Republican challenger Andy Tobin by 5 percent - an increase compared to 2012.

In late May 2015, Kirkpatrick announced that he was running for the Democratic nomination for the 2016 United States Senate election in Arizona. She was considered the first serious challenger to the Republican mandate holder John McCain , who ran for re-election. The polls before the election on November 8, 2016 showed roughly the same values ​​for both candidates, which is why the Arizona Daily Sun described this Senate election campaign as the toughest McCain had ever contested. With results generally weak for the Democrats, Kirkpatrick was clearly defeated with 41 to 54 percent of the vote. Since she had not resumed her previous mandate in the House of Representatives, she left Congress on January 3, 2017.

In July 2017, it was announced that Kirkpatrick was running for the Democratic nomination in Arizona's 2nd Congressional District in the 2018 Congressional election . To do this, she moved from Flagstaff in the 1st District area to Tucson in the 2nd District, a competitive congressional district that was represented by Democrat Ron Barber until 2015 and has since been represented by Republican Martha McSally . After McSally announced in January 2018 that he would be running for the US Senate instead of her current seat , political observers saw Kirkpatrick - who is supported by former electorate Gabrielle Giffords - as the favorite to win the election. In the Democratic primary election on August 28, 2018, she prevailed with 41.4 percent of the vote and met Republican Lea Marquez Peterson in the main election in November. She won with 53.3 to 46.7 percent of the vote and took up her mandate on January 3, 2019.

Positions and Style

Kirkpatrick is considered a centrist democrat. Among other things, it deviates significantly from the generally more restrictive party line in questions of environmental protection; job creation is a priority for them. She voted against the Keystone XL pipeline and for the permanent closure of a uranium mine near the Grand Canyon , but at the same time, she and her Republican congressional colleague Paul Gosar (who beat it in 2010) campaigned for one of the largest copper deposits in the United States, which was closed to Indians because of the sanctity of the area (see the Resolution Copper project in Superior ). In 2016, the League of Conservation Voters , an interest group for environmental protection, gave it a moderate rating of 63 percent agreement ( John McCain : 4 percent, Ruben Gallego : 97 percent, Kyrsten Sinema : 60 percent).

Although she later criticized many details, she voted for Barack Obama's health care reform . As a practicing Catholic, Kirkpatrick advocates freedom of choice for women in abortion ( Pro-Choice ). Initially, she strongly advocated gun ownership , but changed her position after the rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School and advocated the approval of some gun controls. Particularly in her early days in Congress, Kirkpatrick channeled large sums of federal funds into infrastructure projects in her constituency, which brought her into disrepute among fiscal conservatives. The advocacy group Citizens Against Government Waste saw agreement with her at 13 percent (John McCain: 94, Ruben Gallego: 1 percent). She is strongly committed to the rights of Indians.

Her political style is described as unpretentious and close to the people. She plays various instruments in jam sessions and speaks fluent Mandarin, Spanish, French, Navajo and Modern Greek.

Web links

Commons : Ann Kirkpatrick  - collection of images, videos and audio files

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Miriam Wasser: Ann Kirkpatrick Is on the Hunt For John McCain - Well, His US Senate Seat, At Least. In: Phoenix News Times , June 22, 2016 (English).
  2. ↑ Joe Ferguson: Ann Kirkpatrick to announce run for Congress in District 2. In: Arizona Daily Star , July 20, 2017 (English).
  3. ↑ Miriam Wasser: Ann Kirkpatrick Is on the Hunt For John McCain - Well, His US Senate Seat, At Least. In: Phoenix News Times , June 22, 2016 (English).
  4. ↑ Clare Foran: Arizona congresswoman to seek treatment for 'alcohol dependence'. In: CNN , January 15, 2020 (English).
  5. ↑ Ann Livingston: The Survivor: How Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick Held On. In: Roll Call , November 18, 2014 (English).
  6. ↑ Emily Cahn: Kirkpatrick to Challenge McCain in Arizona. In: Roll Call , May 26, 2015 (English).
  7. ^ Joe Ferguson: Kirkpatrick, Trump giving McCain his toughest race. In: Arizona Daily Sun , October 2, 2016 (English).
  8. ^ Another six years: John McCain wins Senate race over Ann Kirkpatrick. In: KTAR.com , November 8, 2016 (English); Kirkpatrick, Ann. In: Our Campaigns.
  9. ^ Joe Ferguson: Ann Kirkpatrick to announce run for Congress in District 2. In: Arizona Daily Star , July 20, 2017.
  10. ^ David Wasserman: McSally Senate Bid Moves AZ-02 to Lean Democratic. In: Cook Political Report , January 12, 2018.
  11. ^ Arizona Primary Election Results. In: The New York Times , August 29, 2018. See 2018 Midterm Election Forecast: Arizona 2nd. In: FiveThirtyEight ; Arizona 2nd District - Peterson vs. Kirkpatrick. In: RealClearPolitics.
  12. ^ Arizona Election Results: Second House District. In: The New York Times , November 7, 2018.
  13. ↑ Miriam Wasser: Ann Kirkpatrick Is on the Hunt For John McCain - Well, His US Senate Seat, At Least. In: Phoenix News Times , June 22, 2016 (English).
personal data
SURNAME Kirkpatrick, Ann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician
DATE OF BIRTH March 14, 1950
PLACE OF BIRTH McNary , Arizona