Who Is She?

About Congresswoman Barbara Lee

Barbara Lee was first elected to the House of Representatives for the Ninth District of California in a 1998 special election to fill the seat of retiring Congressman Ron Dellums. She is currently the Vice Chair of the Progressive Caucus, Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) Task Force on Global HIV/AIDS, Democratic Regional Whip for Region 2 (Northern California, American Samoa, Guam, Hawaii), and a member of the CBC Minority Business Task Force. Congresswoman Lee came to Washington after serving in the California State Assembly from 1990-1996 and the California State Senate from 1996-1998.

Throughout her political career, Barbara Lee has sought to bring her training as a social worker to bear on the problems and challenges that confront the East Bay, California, and the nation. She has worked to build bipartisan coalitions to provide for the basic and inter-related needs of Americans: health care, housing, education, jobs, and the quest to create livable communities in a peaceful world. In order to meet these needs, Americans and their representatives must begin by reordering our priorities and redefining national security for the post-Cold War world: a bloated defense budget undermines rather than enhances our real national security. In Congress, Barbara Lee is carrying on a long tradition in the Ninth District of representing the voice of reason and compassion in the fight to reshape the national budget.

These objectives underlie Lee’s work on the International Relations Committee (Subcommittees on Africa and Europe) and the Financial Services Committee (Subcommittees on Housing and International Monetary Policy). She has emerged as a key leader in Congress in the fight against HIV/AIDS both at home and abroad, helping to secure over $5 million in funding for HIV/AIDS care and services in Alameda County. Recognizing that national boundaries will not stop the spread of this disease and that AIDS represents the crucial humanitarian issue of our time, she has worked successfully to pass meaningful legislation that will initiate multilateral international efforts to fight this terrible disease. She was co-author of H.R. 3519, the Global AIDS and Tuberculosis Relief Act of 2000, which can ultimately leverage over $1 billion to combat these diseases and which was signed into law by President Clinton. More recently, Congresswoman Lee has introduced legislation to increase the worldwide affordability of AIDS drugs and linking international debt relief to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and social and health infrastructure.

Access to healthcare is a basic human right, one that is too often denied or restricted here in this country. For that reason, Congresswoman Lee has introduced the Universal Healthcare Act, authored legislation on benign brain tumors, and supported expanding prescription drug coverage for seniors and other Americans.

 

Rep. Lee and Ghanian Children

As a member of the Financial Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Housing, Lee has played a leading role in the fight for affordable housing, one of the most urgent issues facing the Bay Area. She helped secure a $34 million grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development for the City of Oakland and, through the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, convened a Western Regional Summit on Housing and Wealth Accumulation in which Fannie Mae contributed $500,000 to the Northern California Land Trust for low cost housing. Additionally, Lee has consistently supported legislation to expand opportunities for home ownership, improve the quality of public housing in this country, and assist individuals and families who are homeless.

Education has also always been a very high priority on Barbara Lee’s agenda. She has worked with teachers and counselors to craft legislation to provide schools with the means to hire badly needed counselors and other mental health and social work professionals. In California schools today there are on average 1100 students for every counselor; the Lee bill would help give school districts the resources to meet these critical needs. Additionally, the Congresswoman has also worked to reduce class size, strengthen after school programs, and increase the amount of money directed to educational programs and initiatives; for instance, she has helped to raise millions in federal and local funds for math and science education at the Chabot Observatory and Science Center in Oakland and for violence prevention and environmental education at the Martin Luther King Freedom Center.

Lee has sought to bridge the digital divide both in our schools and our communities at large. As a member of the CBC High Tech Working Group, she has worked with representatives from the high technology fields to open doors to minorities and women. Increasing access to technology is a mechanism that can help achieve both economic development and racial justice. Tackling digital divide issues is just one component of Barbara Lee’s efforts to strengthen economic development in the Bay Area, including the effective redevelopment of area military bases, and to enhance educational opportunities in the region.

It is important to continue growing our local and national economy; Representative Lee believes it is also important that we ensure that growth and expansion bring livability rather than congestion, pollution, and conflict. Enhancing livability requires addressing traffic, transportation, and environmental problems on both a local and a federal level: Lee has worked to increase funding for mass transit while supporting legislation to raise fuel economy standards, reduce pollution, and address environmental racism and introducing a congressional resolution on global climate change. California’s current energy crisis has graphically demonstrated the fundamental need for a new energy policy. Along with other members of the California delegation and the Progressive Caucus, Lee has sought to forge policies that will protect both consumers and the environment.

Barbara Lee began her political career by working as an intern in the office of Congressman Ron Dellums. She later became his chief of staff. Lee has served as a board member of the California State World Trade Commission, the California State Coastal Conservancy, and the District Export Council, and a member of the California Defense Conversion Council. She created and presided over the California Commission on the Status of African American Males, the California Legislative Black Caucus, and the National Conference on State Legislatures Women’s Network, and served as a member of the California Commission on the Status of Women.

Born in El Paso, Texas, Barbara Lee came to California in 1960. After receiving the Bank of America Achievement Award and the Rotary Club Music Award, she went on to Mills College, graduating in 1973, and earning a Master’s degree in Social Welfare from the University of California, Berkeley in 1975. While working towards her graduate degree, Lee founded a community mental health center in Berkeley. She is a resident of Oakland, California.