Christie Vilsack
First Lady of Iowa
In office January 15, 1999 – January 12, 2007
Preceded by	Chris Branstad
Succeeded by	Mariclare Culver
Personal details
Born	1950 (age 61–62) Mount Pleasant, Iowa
Political party	Democratic Party
Spouse(s)	Tom Vilsack
Children	two
Alma mater	Kirkland College University of Iowa

Christie Vilsack (born 1950 in Mount Pleasant, Iowa) is an American literacy advocate and politician. Vilsack is married to former Iowa Governor and current United States Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, serving as the First Lady of Iowa from 1999 until 2007. She is a 2012 Democratic candidate for U.S. Representative for Iowa's 4th congressional district.^[1]

Early life, marriage and family[link]

Vilsack was born Ann Christine Bell and raised in Mount Pleasant, Iowa.^[2] Vilsack graduated from Kirkland College in Clinton, New York, in 1972.

She met her future husband, Tom Vilsack, while attending college in upstate New York.^[2] Tom Vilsack reportedly approached her in the cafeteria and asked her, "Are you a Humphrey or a Nixon supporter?"^[2] The couple married on August 18, 1973, in Mount Pleasant.^[2] They have two children.^[3]

Teaching career[link]

The Vilsacks moved to Mount Pleasant in 1975.^[4] She began her career there as a librarian and a teacher.^[4] For eighteen years she taught at the middle school level, and also at the high school level, leading classes in language arts and journalism. For another six years, she taught English and journalism at Iowa Wesleyan College.

She has also worked as a reporter and columnist for the Mount Pleasant News. She earned a master's degree in journalism from the University of Iowa in 1992.^[3]

First Lady of Iowa[link]

Christie Vilsack became First Lady of Iowa when her husband, Tom Vilsack was sworn in as governor in 1999. As First Lady, she focused on education and literacy issues.^[3]

As founder and president of the Vilsack Foundation, she partnered with the National Center for Family Literacy to promote media literacy with parents and their children.^[5]

In 2007, Vilsack founded The Iowa Initiative, a privately funded foundation which aims to reduce the rate of unintended pregnancies among Iowa women ages 18 to 30. She served as executive director of the Initiative until February 2011, when she resigned to focus on exploring opportunities for seeking elected office. She now serves as chair of the Board of Directors.^[6]

Political career[link]

In October 2009, Vilsack told WHO-DT she was considering a possible run against Republican Senator Chuck Grassley in the 2010 U.S. Senate election in Iowa.^[1][7] A Research 2000 poll for the website Daily Kos, conducted just days after the interview, showed that Grassley led Vilsack 51-40 in a hypothetical matchup, placing Vilsack in a statistical tie with declared Democratic party candidates Roxanne Conlin and Bob Krause.^[8] She ultimately decided not to run.

In April 2011, Vilsack formed an exploratory committee to prepare for a potential campaign for Congress in Iowa's 4th District.^[9] She made her official announcement to run on July 19.^[10] If elected, Vilsack would be the first woman to represent Iowa in Congress. (Iowa is one of two states that has never elected a woman to the House, Senate or governorship.^[11]) The district had previously been the 5th, represented by Vilsack's general-election opponent, five-term Republican incumbent Steve King.^[12]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Christie Vilsack for Congress official campaign website
• Biography, voting record, and interest group ratings at Project Vote Smart
• Campaign finance reports and data at the Federal Election Commission
• Appearances on C-SPAN programs
• 2012 Campaign contributions for Race: Iowa District 04, OpenSecrets.org

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (August 2008)

Andrea Mitchell
Andrea and her husband Alan Greenspan, 2007
Born	(1946-10-30) October 30, 1946 (age 65) New York City, New York, U.S.
Education	University of Pennsylvania
Occupation	News anchor
Years active	1967–present
Notable credit(s)	NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, Today, Andrea Mitchell Reports
Title	NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Host, Andrea Mitchell Reports
Spouse	Alan Greenspan (1997–present) Gil Jackson (divorced 1970s)
Website
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3688874/ NBC News Biography

Andrea Mitchell (born October 30, 1946) is an American television journalist, anchor, reporter, and commentator for NBC News based in Washington, D.C.. She is the NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, and has recently reported on the 2008 Race for the White House for NBC News broadcasts, including NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, Today, and MSNBC. She anchors Andrea Mitchell Reports airing at 1pm–2pm ET weekdays on MSNBC, has appeared on and guest hosted Meet the Press, and is often a guest on Hardball with Chris Matthews and The Rachel Maddow Show.

Early life[link]

Mitchell graduated with a B.A. in English literature from the University of Pennsylvania in 1967, where she served as news director of student radio station WXPN. She stayed in Philadelphia after graduation, hired as a reporter at KYW radio. Mitchell rose to prominence as the station's City Hall correspondent, and also reported for sister station KYW-TV. She moved to CBS affiliate WTOP in Washington, D.C., in 1976. Two years later, Mitchell moved to NBC's network news operation, where she served as a general correspondent. In 1979, she was named the NBC News energy correspondent and reported on the late 1970s energy crisis and the Three Mile Island nuclear accident. Mitchell also covered the White House from 1981 until becoming chief congressional correspondent in 1988.

NBC News and MSNBC[link]

She has been the Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent for NBC News since November 1994.^{[citation needed]} Previously, she had served as Chief White House Correspondent (1993–1994) and Chief Congressional Correspondent (1988–1992) for NBC News.

In 2005, Mitchell published a book entitled Talking Back... to Presidents, Dictators, and Assorted Scoundrels (ISBN 0143038737), chronicling her work as a journalist.

Mitchell hosts a program on MSNBC entitled Andrea Mitchell Reports. It broadcasts weekdays from 1 PM ET/10 AM PT.

Controversies[link]

Role in the Plame Affair[link]

A report in The Washington Post ("Bush Administration Is Focus of Inquiry CIA Agent's Identity Was Leaked to Media" by Mike Allen and Dana Priest, Washington Post, September 28, 2003) that Mitchell was leaked Valerie Plame's identity led to her being questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. While Mitchell never appeared before the investigating grand jury or in I. Lewis Libby's trial, she was on the subpoena list as a person of interest. In October 2003, on "Capitol Report," Mitchell made a statement which Libby's defense construed to mean it was widely known among journalists that Joe Wilson's wife was in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), a position she later clarified.^[1]

MURRAY: And the second question is: Do we have any idea how widely known it was in Washington that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA?
MITCHELL: It was widely known amongst those of us who cover the intelligence community and who were actively engaged in trying to track down who among the foreign service community was the envoy to Niger. But frankly I wasn't aware of her actual role at the CIA and the fact that she had a covert role involving weapons of mass destruction, not until Bob Novak wrote it.

McCain's "cone of silence"[link]

Following a forum at the Saddleback Church in August 2008 on values and ethics conducted by Christian pastor and author Rick Warren between the presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain, Mitchell reported that the Obama campaign accused McCain of overhearing the questions asked of Obama, when McCain was supposed to be in a secluded "cone of silence."

According to the New York Times, Warren assured the audience that “we have safely placed Senator McCain in a cone of silence” and that he could not hear the questions. However, McCain was not in the building at the time; he was still in transit, without supervision by the forum staff.^[2] According to CNN, Warren said "we flat out asked him" if he heard any of the questions. The McCain campaign asserted "that McCain did not hear or see any of the broadcast" in the motorcade or after he arrived.^[3] The accusation provoked the McCain campaign into writing a letter to NBC News, complaining of biased news coverage.^[4] The dispute expanded, including reports on other networks such as CBS noting that there were allegations McCain had access to "communications devices" which may have advised him of the questions even if he was not listening directly to the broadcast itself.^[5]

Controversy during Obama Campaign[link]

During an appearance on MSNBC on June 5, 2008, Mitchell came under fire when she referred to the voters of the southwest Virginia region as rednecks.^[6] On June 9, Mitchell apologized for her comment stating:

And now, a point of personal privilege. I owe an apology to the good people of Bristol, Virginia, for something stupid that I said last week. I was trying to explain, based on reporting from Democratic strategists, why Barack Obama was campaigning in southwest Virginia, but without attribution or explanation, I used a term strategists often use to demean an entire community. No excuses, I'm really sorry. As they say, when I make a mistake, it's a beaut.^[7]

Iowa Caucus Controversy[link]

Mitchell came under criticism for a comment made during an interview of Republican strategist Mike Murphy in a January 1, 2012 news segment on Nightly News with Brian Williams. Mitchell said, "The rap on Iowa: it doesn't represent the rest of the country – too white, too evangelical, too rural." NBC defended the comment stating, "she was referencing critics who argue that the state shouldn't carry so much weight because it doesn't proportionally represent the rest of the country." ^[8]

Personal life[link]

Mitchell was born in New York City. She married her second husband, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, twenty years her senior, in 1997 following a lengthy relationship. ^[9] Previously, she was married to Gil Jackson; that marriage ended in divorce in the mid-1970s. At the end of her show on September 7, 2011, Mitchell revealed that she was diagnosed with breast cancer during a doctor's visit a few weeks earlier. It was caught early and treated.^[10]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Andrea Mitchell

• Andrea Mitchell Reports at MSNBC TV, with Biography
• Andrea Mitchell on Twitter
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Andrea Mitchell on Charlie Rose
• Andrea Mitchell at the Internet Movie Database
• Works by or about Andrea Mitchell in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Andrea Mitchell at the Notable Names Database
• Andrea Mitchell – University of Pennsylvania video

Steven Arnold "Steve" King (born May 28, 1949) is the U.S. Representative for Iowa's 5th congressional district, serving since 2003. He is a member of the Republican Party.

The district is located in the western part of the state and includes Sioux City and Council Bluffs.

Early life, education and career[link]

King was born on May 28, 1949 in Storm Lake, Iowa. The son of Emmett King, a state police dispatcher, and Mildred King, a homemaker, King graduated in 1967 from Denison Community High School.^[1] He attended Northwest Missouri State University from 1967 to 1970,^[2] taking courses toward becoming a wildlife officer.^[1] He does not have a college degree.^[3] In 1975, he founded King Construction, an earth moving company. King founded the Kiron Business Association in the 1980s. His involvement with the Iowa Land Improvement Contractors' Association led to regional and national offices in that organization and a growing interest in public policy.^[1]

Iowa Senate[link]

From 1996 to 2002, King served as an Iowa State Senator, representing the 6th district.^[2] King worked as the Chairman of the State Government Committee and Vice Chairman of the Oversight Budget Committee. He was a part of the Appropriations Committee, Judiciary Committee, Business and Labor Committee, and the Commerce Committee. He assisted in eliminating the inheritance tax, enforcing workplace drug testing, strengthening parental rights, passing tax cuts for working residents of Iowa, and passing a law that made English the official language in Iowa.^[4]

U.S. House of Representatives[link]

Committee assignments[link]

• Committee on Agriculture
  • Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition, and Forestry
  • Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management
  • Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry
  • Subcommittee on Nutrition and Horticulture
• Committee on the Judiciary
  • Subcommittee on the Constitution
  • Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law (Vice Chairman) ^[5]
• Committee on Small Business

• Congressional Cuba Democracy Caucus
• Republican Study Committee
• Tea Party Caucus

Political positions[link]

King is considered an outspoken fiscal and social conservative. After winning the 2002 Republican nomination, he said that he intended to use his seat in Congress to "move the political center of gravity in Congress to the right."^[6]

During the 110th Congress, King voted with the majority of the Republican Party 90.9% of the time.^[7] King has continuously voted for Iraq War legislation, and has supported surge efforts and opposed a time table for troop withdrawals.

During the 112th Congress King was one of 40 "staunch" members of the Republican Study Committee who frequently voted against Republican party leadership and vocally expressed displeasure with House bills.^[8]

The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America gave King a 'B' grade, based on the key veterans' legislation that came to a vote during the 110th Congress. King was the only US Representative from Iowa who did not receive an 'A' or 'A+' from IAVA. For reference, former POW John McCain received a D in the same report.^[9]

He was the only Representative from Iowa to score 100 percent on the joint Family Research Council Action/Focus on the Family Action Congressional Scorecard in the second session of the 109th Congress. In the 109th United States Congress, and again in the 110th Congress, King chairs the Conservative Opportunity Society, an organization founded by Newt Gingrich and others consisting of Republican members of Congress committed to representing the conservative agenda in the House of Representatives.^[10]

In November 2010 King endorsed Michele Bachmann for House Republican Conference Chair.^[11]

Abortion[link]

Representative King scored a 100% rating with the National Right to Life Committee, indicating a pro-life voting record. King also voted no on allowing human embryonic stem cell research.^[12]

Gun control[link]

King supports a broad legal latitude for individual gun ownership.^[13]

Race and gender[link]

King opposes race based quotas and affirmative action. King has stated: “There’s been legislation that’s been brought through this House that sets aside benefits for women and minorities. The only people that it excludes are white men...Pretty soon, white men are going to notice they are the ones being excluded.” ^[14]

Steve King said on the floor of the House on June 14, 2010 that racial profiling is an important component of law enforcement: "Some claim that the Arizona law will bring about racial discrimination profiling. First let me say, Mr. Speaker, that profiling has always been an important component of legitimate law enforcement. If you can’t profile someone, you can’t use those common sense indicators that are before your very eyes. Now, I think it’s wrong to use racial profiling for the reasons of discriminating against people, but it’s not wrong to use race or other indicators for the sake of identifying that are violating the law."^[15] As an example of profiling, King described an instance when a taxi driver would stop for him before he had to hail a cab, just because he was in a business suit.^[16]

Same sex marriage[link]

On April 3, 2009, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that a state ban on same-sex marriage violated the Iowa constitution.^[17] King soon commented that the judges "should resign from their position" and the state legislature "must also enact marriage license residency requirements so that Iowa does not become the gay marriage Mecca." ^[18] King, along with others, mounted a campaign against the retention of all three Iowa Supreme Court judges who ruled on the gay marriage case. King bought $80,000 of radio across the state calling for Iowans to vote "no" on the judges. Subsequently, all three judges were not retained.^[19]

Federal spending[link]

King fought against Medicare and Medicaid paying for a number of medications such as Viagra, which he described as "recreational drugs".^[20] King also has voted against each stimulus bill in the U.S. House of Representatives, saying, “Our economy will not recover because government spends more. It will recover because people produce more.”^[21]

King gained prominence by being one of 11 in Congress to vote against the $52 billion Katrina Aid package citing fiscal responsibility and the government needing a comprehensive plan for spending aid money. The Sioux City Journal wrote the following about King's vote:

"In September, we took our congressman, Steve King, to task for voting against a $52 billion aid package for victims of Hurricane Katrina. King - who was just one of 11 members of Congress who voted against the package which passed both houses and was signed by President Bush - based his vote on the need for "fiscal responsibility." He said the federal government needed to develop a comprehensive plan for spending aid dollars, including input from members of Congress, before more money was appropriated. He earlier had voted for a $10.5 billion emergency aid package. Well, after reading an Associated Press story about a report that details how perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars in Katrina disaster aid have been misspent, it appears we were wrong and King was right about his vote on the $52 billion." ^[22]

Illegal immigration[link]

King is against illegal immigration.^{[citation needed]}. He is considered a likely candidate to chair the House Immigration subcommittee in the Republican-majority House of Representatives.

In April 2006, conservative members of Congress proposed strengthening law enforcement against illegal immigration to the United States. When asked if "the US economy simply couldn't function without" the presence of illegal immigrants, King said that he rejected that position "categorically". He said "they", referring to the 77.5 million people between the ages of sixteen and sixty-five in the United States who are not part of the workforce, "could be put to work and we could invent machines to replace the rest."^[23]

King said that "members of Congress that vote for a guest-worker plan ... will be supporting an amnesty plan and they should be branded with the scarlet letter 'A' and pay for that amnesty in the ballot box in November [elections]".

Political lobbying[link]

On February 26, 2010, King went to the House floor to protest the Democrats' handling of health care reform and said: "Lobbyists do a very effective and useful job on this Hill ...There's a credibility there in that arena that I think somebody needs to stand up for the lobby, and it is a matter of providing a lot of valuable information."^[24]

Political campaigns[link]

Steve King at an event in Ames, Iowa in August 2011.

In 2002, after redistricting took 5th District incumbent and fellow Republican Tom Latham out of the district, King ran in a four-way Republican primary for the seat. His most prominent opponents were fellow state senator John Redwine and State House Speaker Brent Siegrest. The 5th, then as now, was so heavily Republican that it was generally thought whoever won the Republican primary was all but assured of victory in November.

King won the primary election with 30% of the vote, short of the 35 percent required by Iowa law to be named the outright winner. Subsequently, a nominating convention was held which King won on the third ballot.^[25] King easily won election in November over Council Bluffs city councilman Paul Shomshor, and he was reelected almost as handily in 2004.

In 2006, King won re-election in the 2006 general election against Democrat Schulte and Independent candidates Roy Nielsen and Cheryl Broderson with 59 percent of the vote.^[26]

2008[link]

In 2008, King had been seen as a possible challenger for Tom Harkin's Senate seat, but on March 7, he announced that he would run for a fourth House term. King was opposed by Democratic nominee Rob Hubler and Independent candidate Victor Vara. King won with 60 percent of the vote and for the first time won all 32 counties in his district.^[27]

2010[link]

King ran against Democratic nominee Matt Campbell and won with his highest percentage yet of 66 percent. King also won all 32 counties in the 5th District for the second election cycle in a row.^[28]

2012[link]

Iowa lost a district as a result of the 2010 Census. King's district was renumbered as the 4th District, and pushed well to the east, absorbing Mason City and Ames in the process. This placed King and his predecessor, Latham, in the same district. Latham opted to move to the reconfigured 3rd District and challenge Democratic incumbent Leonard Boswell. While the new district closely resembles the area Latham represented for his first four terms, it is much more competitive than King's old district. The old 5th had a Cook Partisan Voting Index of R+9; the new 4th has a PVI of R+4.

Soon afterward, former Iowa First Lady Christie Vilsack, the wife of former Governor and current Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, announced she was moving to the new 4th to challenge King.

Remarks about Barack Obama[link]

On March 7, 2008, during his press engagements to announce his reelection campaign, King made remarks about Senator and Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama and his middle name, saying:

"I don't want to disparage anyone because of their race, their ethnicity, their name - whatever their religion their father might have been," I'll just say this: When you think about the optics of a Barack Obama potentially getting elected President of the United States -- I mean, what does this look like to the rest of the world? What does it look like to the world of Islam? I will tell you that, if he is elected president, then the radical Islamists, the al-Qaida, the radical Islamists and their supporters, will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11 because they will declare victory in this War on Terror. Additionally, his middle name (Hussein) does matter. It matters because they read a meaning into that in the rest of the world...If he were strong on national defense and said 'I'm going to go over there and we're going to fight and we're going to win, we'll come home with a victory,' that's different. But that's not what he said. They will be dancing in the streets if he's elected president. That has a chilling aspect on how difficult it will be to ever win this Global War on Terror." ^[29]

Then on March 10, King defended his comments to The Associated Press, saying "(Obama will) certainly be viewed as a savior for them.... That's why you will see them supporting him, encouraging him."^[30]

Obama said he did not take the comments too seriously, describing King as an individual who thrives on making controversial statements to get media coverage. He said, "I would hope Senator McCain would want to distance himself from that kind of inflammatory and offensive remarks." The McCain campaign disavowed King's comments, saying "John McCain rejects the type of politics that degrades our civics…and obviously that extends to Congressman King's statement."^[30]

In mid-January 2009, King acknowledged that terrorists were not dancing in the streets, and in fact "They have made statements against Obama." He also said that he found Obama’s decision to use his middle name, "Hussein", when he is sworn in as the 44th President of the United States on January 20, 2009, to be "bizarre" and “a double-standard."^[31]

Steve King said on a radio show on June 14, 2010 that President Obama's policies favor black people. On G. Gordon Liddy's radio program, King said, "The president has demonstrated that he has a default mechanism in him that breaks down the side of race - on the side that favors the black person."^[32]

References[link]

External links[link]

	Iowa portal
	Biography portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Steve King

• U.S. Congressman Steve King official U.S. House site
• Steve King for U.S. Congress official campaign site
• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Voting record maintained by The Washington Post
• Biography, voting record, and interest group ratings at Project Vote Smart
• Congressional profile at GovTrack
• Congressional profile at OpenCongress
• Issue positions and quotes at On the Issues
• Financial information at OpenSecrets.org
• Staff salaries, trips and personal finance at LegiStorm.com
• Campaign finance reports and data at the Federal Election Commission
• Campaign contributions at the National Institute for Money in State Politics
• Appearances on C-SPAN programs
• Appearances at the Internet Movie Database

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