Candidate for
US Representative; Pennsylvania Congressional District; District 13; Democratic Party

I entered the race for Congress knowing full well that on any given day one Member of Congress can make a difference. I lived one such day.

My desire to serve today is rooted firmly in the very same belief I held when I first won this seat -- a belief in the power of different voices in Congress to make a difference: the voices of a mother and grandmother who today make up less than 20% of Congress; the voice of one who fights to empower women in emerging democracies around the world ‒ leading an international organization that was to become the first to bring Bosnian and Serbian women together and double the number of women in several parliaments in Africa; the voice of an educator and author who has encouraged the next generation of women to seek office and serve. These voices are not better or worse than the voices of those now serving in Congress but they are different. And that difference can make a difference.

At a time when Congress looks very much like a grade school playground of unruly children, I look back to a time in Congress ‒ my time -- when different voices did make a difference. Yes, the days in Congress when I served were contentious with many tough issues and tough votes. But these voices broke through the partisanship and led the fight for, and passage of, the Family and Medical Leave Act, a ban on assault weapons, and the Clinton budget that laid the groundwork for the largest expansion of the US economy since World War II.

I entered the race for Congress because it is time for these different voices to make a difference once again.

Beyond bringing a different voice to Congress, I will bring a level of experience unmatched in this race. I have worked with the Democratic leadership both in Congress and as the leader of an international non-profit organization. I have a Congressional voting record on many of the very issues that are before the House of Representatives today. I know what it takes to run an office that prides itself on constituent service. And I know how to take a tough vote when it matters most.

On the night I cast the deciding vote for the Clinton budget in 1993, the right wing of the Republican Party was in lockstep to bring it down, and with it, President Clinton's economic agenda. Democratic members, many in safe seats, feared a backlash in their districts and were turning their backs on the President. I told President Clinton that night when he asked me for my vote that it had to be the last vote to put the bill over the top if the bill was going down to defeat: the Republican right wing and those Democrats voting with them must see that it is possible for a Member of Congress to sacrifice her political career for something greater -- to give the newly- elected Clinton presidency a chance to change the economic trajectory of our country. And change it they did in ways that allowed for the largest sustained expansion of American jobs in the last 60 years.

The 13th congressional district represents all that is great about our country and all that continues to challenge us: rich ethnic and racial diversity yet a diversity of economic opportunity; beautiful open space yet neighborhoods confronting the challenges of crime and blight; some of the best funded public schools in the nation yet some schools struggling just to keep their doors open.

But the one thing that binds all of us is the burning desire to leave a better world for our children. The mother who tucks her children in bed at night in Pennypack Park has no greater dreams for her children than the mother on Paper Mill Road. The father who sends his children off to school in Bridgeport wants to secure for them a world of opportunity just as much as the father in Bustleton. The 13th Congressional District is not a Philadelphia District or a Montgomery County District it is an American District and I intend to fight hard every day for all who call it home.