Contact Information
Candidate Background
Candidacy
Undergraduate education: Scripps College
Graduate education: Cornell University
Gabrielle Giffords was born in Tucson, Ariz. She earned a bachelor's in Latin American history and sociology from Scripps College and a master's in regional planning from Cornell University.
She worked as a planner at the University of San Diego before joining Price Waterhouse in 1996. She returned to Tucson to take over her family's tire company, serving as president and chief executive from 1996 to 2000. She formed a commercial property management firm in 2000 and served as its managing partner.
Giffords, a one-time Republican, became a Democrat in 2000 and won election to the Arizona House, where she served one term. She became in 2002 the youngest woman ever elected to the Arizona Senate and was re-elected in 2004.
Giffords was elected to the U.S. House in 2006.
She and her husband, Mark Kelly, a NASA astronaut and Navy captain, live in Tucson.
Profile
Gabrielle Giffords is a moderate Democrat who is a member of the Blue Dog Coalition. She has pushed for border security, small business tax relief and limits to the alternative minimum tax. Her husband is a NASA astronaut and Navy captain and she sits on the Armed Services Committee, two distinctions that earn her support from current and former military members in her district.
Border security and illegal immigration are hot-button topics in Arizona, and Giffords joined other Democratic members of state's congressional delegation in pushing a $600 million border security bill in 2010. She was the first to announce in May that President Barack Obama had decided to send 1,200 National Guard troops to the border.
Those efforts may help her as Republicans target Democratic lawmakers from the state because of the government's lack of border security. It is not a new topic for Giffords: Starting in 2009, she hosted a summit with 60 federal, state and local law enforcement officers to discuss drug violence in northern Mexico and its spillover into the United States. She also reached out to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to address border trafficking and violence.
She advocates for sanctions against employers hiring illegal immigrants, yet also backs comprehensive immigration reform that will provide for a guest worker program and a path to legalization for illegal immigrants already in the country.
Giffords became the youngest woman ever elected to the Arizona Senate when voters chose her in November 2002, after she had served one term in the Arizona House. She was the first Democrat to announce a 2006 run for Republican Rep. Jim Kolbe's 8th District seat when the congressman announced in late November 2005 that he would retire after 11 terms.
Giffords, who says she considers herself a moderate or centrist Democrat, praised Kolbe for responsible representation and leadership in Washington on southern Arizona's behalf and cast herself as his natural successor. While first running for Congress, Giffords said that Kolbe had been nationally recognized for serving his constituents and putting them first, that she had acted similarly while in the Arizona Legislature and that she hoped "to continue that on a national level."
Giffords could face a tough re-election race in 2010 because the 8th District leans Republican, although the less-moderate GOP candidate won the 2010 primary and that could help her. She has built a strong following in the district for her pro-business moves, moderate views and positions on hot topics in the state like illegal immigration.
Campaigns
Gabrielle Giffords faces Republican Jesse Kelly, a tea party favorite and political newcomer, in the November 2010 general election for Arizona's 8th District U.S. House seat.
Giffords was elected to the seat in 2006, defeating Republican Randy Graf with 54 percent of the vote.
She was re-elected in 2008, defeating Republican state Senate President Timothy Bee, a childhood schoolmate, with 55 percent of the vote.
Giffords was elected to the state House in 2000 and to the state Senate in 2002. She was re-elected to the Senate in 2004.
(Last updated by Bob Christie on September 13, 2010.)
