Karen Handel

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Karen Handel (2017)

Karen Christine Handel (born April 18, 1962 in Washington, DC ) is an American Republican politician . She has been a member of the United States House of Representatives since June 26, 2017 , and leaves Congress after her election defeat in early 2019. She was previously Secretary of State of Georgia from 2007 to 2010 . In 2010, she ran for governor of her state and in 2014 for the United States Senate .

Family, education and work

Karen Handel born Walker grew up in a humble family in Upper Marlboro , Maryland , and moved out with her abusive, alcoholic mother when she was 17. There she graduated from high school in 1980 and studied at Community College of Prince George's County and the University of Maryland without a degree, but was later admitted as an accountant. She then worked for Hallmark Cards and later for international companies such as Ciba Vision and KPMG .

She runs the consulting firm Handel Strategy Group , which she founded in 2010. In April 2011, Handel became vice president of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Breast Cancer Initiative , with which she worked at Hallmark Cards, and stepped down in February 2012 because the initiative did not give up its association with Planned Parenthood , which she is into her then published and nationally acclaimed book Planned Bullyhood criticized.

As Deputy Chief of Staff to Second Lady Marilyn Quayle , the wife of Vice President Dan Quayle , she worked on programs against breast cancer and from December 2002 filled the same position with Governor Georgias Sonny Perdue .

Handel moved to Georgia in the 1990s and lives in Roswell with her husband, Steve Handel, who works in the IT industry .

Political career

As chairman of the Chamber of Commerce of Northern Fulton County from 2000, she was elected chairman of the County Commission of Fulton County, the most populous district in the state with the capital Atlanta , in November 2003 , after she lost the election in November 2002. She managed to balance the county's budget but was criticized for increasing her office expenses.

Since her election campaign for the office of Secretary of State Georgia in 2006, Handel has been accused by competitors of supporting abortion , contrary to the views of large parts of her party , which she has repeatedly denied. After being elected in November 2006, she became the first Republican to serve as Secretary of State on January 8, 2007. In this office she pushed through a law that sets higher hurdles for the identification of voters, which has been criticized by Democrats because it makes it more difficult for minorities to participate in elections.

In March 2009 Trade announced to apply for the governorship of Georgia, and reached in July 2010 with the support of Sarah Palin the first place in the first round of intra-party code , but was defeated in August in the runoff narrowly to Nathan Deal , they in his 2014 re-election campaign. In 2014 , she ran to succeed Saxby Chambliss in the United States Senate , but only came third in the May 2014 Republican primary.

In February 2017 Handel made public that he was running for the extraordinary by-election for Georgia's 6th Congressional constituency to succeed Tom Price , who had become Minister of Health in the Trump cabinet . Supported by Saxby Chambliss, among others, she achieved second place in the first round of the by-election - in which representatives of all parties compete against each other - with 19.8 percent of the vote after the Democrat Jon Ossoff and drew because he did not achieve an absolute majority of the votes had to run against him in the runoff election. In this suburban constituency with above-average formal education, in which the Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was defeated by only two percentage points in November 2016, while Price had at the same time defended his congressional mandate by 23 percentage points, Handel won the runoff election on June 20, 2017 51.9 to 48.1 percent of the vote. At over $ 40 million in total, this campaign was the most expensive ever for a Congressional mandate.

Handel began her mandate when she was sworn in on June 26, 2017 and is the first woman to represent Georgia in the House of Representatives. In the November 2018 election , Handel will meet Democrat Lucy McBath , who became known as a gun control activist after her 17-year-old son was shot for listening to music too loud. Handel was defeated in the election, which was considered completely open, with 49.5 to 50.5 percent of the vote and left Congress on January 3, 2019.

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b c d Jonathan Martin: Who Is Karen Handel? A Georgia Runoff Candidate Familiar to Voters. In: The New York Times , April 19, 2017.
  2. ↑ a b Aaron Gould Sheinin: Seasoned trade ready for the spotlight. In: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution , May 14, 2014.
  3. ↑ a b c Karen Handel. ( Memento from July 28, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) In: SOS.ga.gov.
  4. ↑ a b c Jim Denery: Who is Karen Handel? In: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution , June 20, 2017.
  5. ^ Karen Rosen: Keeping Up with Karen Handel. In: Atlanta Trend.
  6. ↑ Abigail Pesta: Former Komen Official Karen Handel Attacks Planned Parenthood in New Book, Calls It a 'Schoolyard Thug'. In: The Daily Beast , May 9, 2012.
  7. ↑ Simone Pathé: Jon Ossoff, Karen Handel Advance to Runoff in Georgia Special Election. In: Roll Call , April 19, 2017.
  8. ^ Nate Cohn: The 15 Best-Educated Congressional Districts in the US In: The New York Times , June 19, 2017; Christopher Bates: Democrats Go 0-for-2 in Georgia, South Carolina. In: Electoral-Vote.com , June 21, 2017; Georgia Election Results: Handel Defeats Ossoff in US House Race. In: The New York Times , June 21, 2017.
  9. ↑ Alicia Parlapiano, Rachel Shorey: Who Financed the Georgia Sixth, the Most Expensive House Election Ever. In: The New York Times , June 20, 2017.
  10. ^ Tamar Hallerman: Georgia's trade takes oath to kick off congressional career. In: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution , June 26, 2017.
  11. ^ Eric Brader, Kyung Lah: Gun control activist Lucy McBath wins Democratic nomination in Georgia House race, CNN projects. In: CNN.com , July 25, 2018.
  12. ↑ Lucy McBath wins Georgia's 6th Congressional District seat. In: The Washington Post , November 14, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Handel, Karen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Handel, Karen Christine (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American Republican Party politician
DATE OF BIRTH April 18, 1962
PLACE OF BIRTH Washington, DC