Tammy Duckworth

Tammy Duckworth (2017)

Ladda Tammy Duckworth (born March 12, 1968 in Bangkok , Thailand ) is an American politician of the Democratic Party . The highly decorated veteran, who was seriously wounded in action, has represented the state of Illinois in the US Senate since 2017 , for which she sat in the House of Representatives from 2013 to 2017 .

Family, education and work

On her father's side, Tammy Duckworth comes from an American military family whose members served in the armed forces during the American Revolution . Her father Franklin (1928-2005) was a veteran of the United States Marine Corps who worked for the United Nations Development Program and international companies and therefore lived in various countries in Southeast Asia . He married the ethnic Chinese Lamai Sompornpairin in Bangkok , with whom he had Tammy Duckworth and a younger son. She first attended the Singapore American School and the International School Bangkok . In 1985 she graduated from President William McKinley High School in Honolulu , Hawaii . She then studied at the University of Hawai'i first marine biology and international relations and political science with the completion of the Bachelor (1989). She continued her studies until 1992 at George Washington University in Washington, DC and then at Northern Illinois University without finishing a dissertation on Southeast Asia, and received an honorary doctorate from her in 2010; she has lived in the state of Illinois since her studies and worked as a manager for Rotary International until her deployment to Iraq .

Duckworth has been married to Bryan Bowlsbey, a major in the Army National Guard , since 1993 . With him, she has two daughters, who were born in November 2014 and April 2018 - the first female US Senator during her mandate. Both daughters have names that the US Senator Daniel Akaka blessed as a Hawaiian "Elder". The family commutes between Washington and Hoffman Estates in the Chicago area.

Military career

Professionally, Duckworth followed in the footsteps of her paternal ancestors. She joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps in 1990 , where she was trained as an officer in the US Army . From 1992 she was a helicopter pilot , initially as a reservist ; it was not until 1993 that female pilots were allowed combat missions. From 1996 she was a member of the Illinois National Guard . In 2004 she was called up into active military service and served as a helicopter pilot in the Iraq war . On November 12, 2004, she was co-pilot on a mission in which her UH-60 Black Hawk was hit by an RPG-7 . She was badly injured and lost both legs; her right arm was badly damaged. So when she was treated at the Walter Reed Military Hospital , she met the then US Senators Barack Obama and Dick Durbin , who promoted their entry into politics. A visit from US Republican Senator Bob Dole , who said he was impressed with her, gave Duckworth the impetus to get into politics. She has received numerous medals, including the Purple Heart , the Meritorious Service Medal, and the Senior Army Aviator Badge , and has been promoted to Major. In October 2014, she was retired from the military. Today she can walk again with the help of prosthetic legs.

Political career

In 2006 Duckworth stood for the first time as a Democrat for a seat in the US House of Representatives and lost just under (48.6 to 51.4 percent) against Republican Peter Roskam in the sixth congressional electoral district of the state of Illinois. Duckworth had been proposed and supported by US Senator Dick Durbin . Between 2006 and 2009 she headed the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs. She was then Assistant Secretary for Public and Intergovernmental Affairs at the US Department of War Veterans under President Barack Obama between 2009 and 2011 . In August 2008 and 2012 she was a speaker at the Democratic National Convention , where she presented her life story to a large public.

In the 2012 congressional election , Duckworth ran again for a seat in the US House of Representatives. In the Democratic Primary for the eighth congressional constituency of Illinois, Duckworth, again with the support of Dick Durbin, beat her opponent Raja Krishnamoorthi with 66 percent of the vote. In the general election, Duckworth defeated the Republican mandate holder Joe Walsh in the eighth constituency with 55 to 45 percent of the vote and thus moved into the US House of Representatives on January 3, 2013. The boundaries of this constituency in the northwestern suburbs of Chicago had been redrawn in 2011 and had brought about a change in the electoral structure that was favorable to Democrats; the National Journal saw Walsh as the country's most vulnerable mandate holder ahead of the election. Walsh had caused a scandal in the election campaign by saying that Duckworth talked too much about her war experience for her to be a real heroine. Duckworth was the first disabled woman in the US House of Representatives and the first Thai-born member of Congress. In the 2014 election she was confirmed with 56 percent against the Republican Larry Kaifesh with 44 percent. Duckworth served on the Armed Forces and Government Control Committee until her departure on January 3, 2017 .

At the end of May 2015, Duckworth announced that he would run in the Democratic Primary for the 2016 election for the seat in the US Senate, which Republican Mark Kirk had held from 2011. She was considered a candidate for the Democratic Party leadership in the primary and was supported by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee . Your advisors Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod came from Obama's circle. In the main election in November 2016, she finally won against Kirk and entered the US Senate for the state of Illinois on January 3, 2017. Her six-year term runs until January 3, 2023, during which time she is a member of the four committees for trade and science , the environment and infrastructure , energy and resources, and small and medium-sized enterprises .

Political positions

Duckworth advocates a number of key Democratic concerns such as minimum tax relief, tuition fees, and health insurance. She considers abortion ( pro-choice ) and the decision to die ( euthanasia ) to be issues of personal life that should be outside the control of the government. She describes the George W. Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq as a mistake. She campaigns for veterans' concerns such as better integration into the labor market and health care. She spoke out against President Donald Trump's orders to deny transgender people access to the armed forces. The only decisive factor is the troops' willingness to act, and Trump's stance is not only discriminatory, but also detrimental to national security. Since the birth of their first child, Duckworth has been committed to improving the compatibility of family and work and everyday life.

Web links

Commons : Tammy Duckworth  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Brief introduction to the US Senate
• Tammy Duckworth in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Tammy Duckworth in the nndb (English)

supporting documents

1. ^ Franklin G. Duckworth . In: ArlingtonCemetery.net. March 18, 2005 (with various updates).
2. ^ After War Injury, an Iraq Vet Takes on Politics . In: The Washington Post . February 19, 2008
3. ↑ ^{a b} Tammy Duckworth . In: Women Under Fire .
4. ^ ^{A b c} Adam Weinstein: Nobody Puts Tammy Duckworth in a Corner . In: Mother Jones . September 2012 (English).
5. ^ ^{A b c} Katherine Skiba: Rep. Tammy Duckworth Gives Birth to Daughter . In: The Chicago Tribune , November 20, 2014 (English); Lynn Sweet: Tammy Duckworth gives birth to girl: First senator to have baby while in office. In: The Chicago Sun-Times , April 9, 2018.
6. ^ ^{A b c d e} Matt Vasilogambros: Illinois, 8th House District: Tammy Duckworth (D). ( Memento of the original from April 6, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: The National Journal , November 6, 2012. 
7. ^ After War Injury, an Iraq Vet Takes on Politics. In: The Washington Post , February 19, 2008; John Biemer: Dole makes it clear: He backs Roskam over Duckworth. In: Chicago Tribune , September 29, 2006.
8. ^ Courtney Cox: What Duckworth Drawn Into the 8th? In: NBC Chicago , July 6, 2011 (English).
9. ↑ Katherine Skiba: Walsh Defends Remarks On Whether Duckworth Is True Hero. In: Chicago Tribune , July 3, 2012 (English).
10. ↑ Ballots Cast. In: Illinois State Board of Elections. Results from November 4, 2014.
11. ^ Michelle Gallardo: Tammy Duckworth Running against Mark Kirk for the US Senate. In: ABC News , March 30, 2015 (English).
12. ^ Katherine Skiba: New US Sen. Duckworth 'anxious to get to work'. In: The Chicago Tribune , January 3, 2017.
13. ^ After War Injury, an Iraq Vet Takes on Politics. In: The Washington Post , February 19, 2008.
14. ^ Duckworth Says Transgender Ban Discriminatory. In: US News. July 26, 2017.