Kay Bailey Hutchison
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Kathryn Ann "Kay" Bailey Hutchison (born July 22 1943) is the senior United States Senator from Texas. She is a member of the Republican Party.
She was born in Galveston, Texas and grew up in La Marque, Texas. She has two children with husband Ray Hutchison. She received her B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1962. She later received her J.D. from the University of Texas at Austin Law School in 1967. Following her graduation from law school, she was the legal and political correspondent for KPRC-TV.
In 1972 Hutchison was elected to the Texas State House of Representatives from Houston, of which she was a member until 1976. She was vice-chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board from 1976 to 1978. She was a candidate for election to the United States House of Representatives in 1982, but was defeated in the primary by Steve Bartlett. She temporarily left politics and became a successful bank executive and businesswoman.
Hutchison was elected Texas State Treasurer in 1990 and served until June 1993 when she ran against Senator Bob Krueger for the right to complete the last two years of Lloyd Bentsen's term. Bentsen had resigned in January 1993 to become Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration and Krueger was appointed to fill the seat by Texas Governor Ann Richards until a all-party primary was held in May 1993. Hutchison (29%) and Krueger (30%) emerged from the election and met in a run-off when no candidate had garnered 50% of the vote. Hutchison defeated Krueger in the June 1993 special election run-off garnering 67% of the vote. Hutchison became the first woman to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate. She was re-elected in 1994 (with 61%) and 2000 when she carried 237 of 254 counties (with 65%). More than four million Texans re-elected her to a second full term in 2000 - at the time the largest number of votes ever garnered in the state.
Since 2001, she has been vice-chairwoman of the Senate Republican Conference (caucus), making her the fourth-ranking Republican in the Senate behind (as of 2005) Majority Leader Bill Frist, Majority Whip Mitch McConnell and conference chairman Rick Santorum and Policy. McConnell has suggested that if Hutchison remains in the Senate, she would become conference chairwoman in 2007.
Committees: Appropriations; Commerce, Science and Transportation; Rules and Administration; Veterans' Affairs
The Senator's Texas roots run deep. Thomas Rusk of Nacogdoches was the first Texan to hold the U.S. Senate seat Hutchison currently occupies. He and the Senator's great-great-grandfather, Charles S. Taylor, were friends and both signed the Texas Declaration of Independence.
In June of 2000, she and her colleagues coauthored Nine and Counting: The Women of the Senate, and she recently wrote her newest book in 2004 entitled, American Heroines: The Spirited Women Who Shaped Our Country.
Political future
Speculation began in 2004 that Hutchison would run for Governor of Texas in 2006 by challenging current Governor Rick Perry in the Republican primary. However, on June 17, 2005, Hutchison's campaign announced she would seek reelection to the Senate instead.
In a CNN interview in February 2005, Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman nominated for Vice President from a major party, said she expected Hutchinson to run for President on the Republican ticket in 2008.
External link
- U.S. Senate: Kay Bailey Hutchison (http://hutchison.senate.gov/)
| Preceded by: Bob Krueger | U.S. Senator (Class 1) from Texas 1993- | Succeeded by: Incumbent Template:End box Template:TX-FedRep Template:Current U.S Senatorsfr:Kay Bailey Hutchison |