Background

• Early Life
• Arkansas' First Lady, 1979-1981 & 1983-1992
• Life in the White House, 1992-2000
• Starting Fresh in the Big Apple
• Major Legislation Supported by Clinton
• Another Stay in the White House?

A lawyer, First Lady, Senator, and Presidential hopeful, Hillary Clinton is a veteran of Washington, D.C. politics. Beginning a career in law in the 1970s, Hillary moved to Arkansas and married Bill Clinton in 1975. She was named one of the hundred most influential lawyers in America in 1988 and '91 after becoming the first female partner at Rose Law Firm in 1979. From 1979 to 1981 and 1983 to 1992, Hillary was the First Lady of Arkansas, championing the welfare of children. In 1992 she moved to the White House with her newly elected husband where she proposed legislation concerning children. Following President Clinton's scandal-plagued 2nd term, the couple moved to New York, where Hillary was elected to the Senate in 2000 and re-elected in 2006. She is presently the leading contender for the 2008 Democratic Convention's nomination for President.

Early Life

Born Hillary Diane Rodham in Chicago, Illinois on October 26, 1947, Hillary was the first of three children (two younger brothers, Hugh and Tony) to parents Hugh Ellsworth Rodham, a textile businessman, and Dorothy Emma Howell Rodham, a homemaker. As a child, Hillary earned awards as a Brownie and Girl Scout and later attended Maine East High School, where she was involved in student council, the debate team and the National Honor Society; for her senior year she attended Maine South High School and was a National Merit Finalist. Her family was conservative politically and Hillary volunteered for Republican candidate Barry Goldwater in the 1964 U.S. Presidential election. Graduating high school in 1965, Hillary enrolled in Wellesley College, majored in Political Science and was president of the Young Republicans her freshman year. However, this post was resigned after her views on the American Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War evolved. Deeply affected by the death of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. during her junior year (she had met him in 1962), Hillary became a supporter of the anti-war campaign of Democrat Eugene McCarthy. Also in 1968, Hillary was elected President of the Wellesley College Government and attended the "Wellesley in Washington" summer program. A year later, Hillary graduated with departmental honors in political science and, at the urging of her classmates, became the first student in her college's history to deliver the commencement address. Her address received a seven-minute long standing ovation and she was featured in a Life magazine article. She spent her summer traveling across Alaska before starting Yale Law School the following fall. There, she served on the Board of Editors of the Yale Review of Law and Social Action. In her second year, she volunteered at the Yale Child Study Center, learning about new research for childhood brain development. In the summer of 1970, she was awarded a grant to work at the Children's Defense Fund in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1971 she began dating future President Bill Clinton who was also a law student at Yale. Later that year, she went to Washington to work on Senator Mondale's subcommittee on migrant workers, researching migrant problems in housing, sanitation, health and education. The following summer, Hillary campaigned in the West for 1972 Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern and interned in Oakland, California at the law firm of Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein. She received a Juris Doctor in 1973 from Yale and spent a year of grad work on children and medicine at the Yale Child Study Center. Her first paper, "Children Under the Law," was published in the Harvard Educational Review in late 1973.

First Lady

By 1974, Hillary Clinton was seen as someone with a potentially very bright political future. She had served as staff attorney for the Children's Defense Fund in Cambridge, Massachusetts and as a consultant to the Carnegie Council on Children following her graduation from Yale. In 1974 she was a member of the impeachment inquiry staff for the House Committee on the Judiciary during the Watergate scandal, ending in the resignation of President Nixon in August 1974. Passing the Arkansas, but not the D.C., bar exam, Hillary followed Bill to Arkansas and the couple became faculty at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville School of Law. On October 11, 1975, the two were married in their Fayetteville home and in 1976 Bill was elected Attorney General, moving the newlyweds to the capital, Little Rock. Hillary joined the Rose Law Firm in 1976, specializing in intellectual property and pro bono child advocacy. In 1978 President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the board of the Legal Services Corporation. In 1979 Hillary became the First Lady of Arkansas, holding the title for 12 years. In this time, the Clintons began their later extremely scandalous Whitewater venture. In 1980, Hillary gave birth to Chelsea, their only child.

As First Lady of Arkansas, Hillary (who adopted "Clinton" during her husbands re-election bid in 1982 as an appeal to voters) chaired the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee from 1982 to 1992, seeking to improve teacher testing standards. Hillary founded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families in 1977 and served on the boards of such non-profits as the Arkansas Children's Hospital Legal Services (1988-1992) and the Children's Defense Fund (chair, 1986-1992) and profits such as TCBY frozen yogurts (1985-1992), Wal-Mart (1986-1992) and Lafarge (1990-1992).

First Lady, Again

In 1992, the Clintons moved to the White House, Bill saying that Americans were getting "two for the price of one," referring to his wife. (Source: AmericanPresident.org) In 1993, Hillary was appointed chairwoman of the Task Force on National Health Care Reform by her husband. This became known as the Clinton Health Care Plan ("Hillarycare" by opponents), a complex proposal that would mandate employers to provide health coverage to their employees through individual health maintenance organizations. The plan did not make it through either house of the Congress even with both controlled by Democrats and was abandoned in 1994. In 1996, Hillary become the first First Lady to be subpoenaed to testify before a Federal grand jury after the McDougals' (former Clinton partners in the Whitewater controversy) savings and loan failed and Hillary's legal billing records were needed for auditing purposes and were not able to be produced without a two-year search. In 2000, a report stated there was no evidence that the Clintons did anything illegal through Whitewater. In 1998, the Monica Lewinsky scandal shook the White House and the Clintons' marriage. To stay with her husband after his extramarital was a decision she attributed to love. (Source: AdvisorTeam.com)In the last years of her stay in the White House, Hillary hosted various Conferences on children concerns and advocated research on breast cancer, prostate cancer, childhood asthma and Gulf War syndrome. Of prominance was Hillary's Adoption and Safe Families Act which sought to correct problems inherent in the foster care system which deterred adoption of children with special needs; it was her self-proclaimed greatest accomplishment as First Lady.

Goodbye White House, Hello Senate

In 2000, Hillary Clinton became the first First Lady to run for an elected office, in her case the New York Senate seat. The Clintons purchased a home in Chappaqua, New York, north of NYC in 1999. At first, Clinton was to race against Republican Rudy Giuliani, but due to medical reasons he withdrew from the race and the GOP ran Representative Rick Lazio instead. Clinton won with 55% of the vote and took office on January 3, 2001.

Major Legislation

• 1997: Children's Health Insurance Program; Initiated by Clinton and designed for families who earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid, yet cannot afford to buy private insurance. Was the largest expansion of health insurance coverage for children in the United States since Medicaid began in the 1960s.

2008 Presidential Campaign

Hillary Clinton is currently campaigning for the 2008 Democratic nomination for President of the United States

Professional Positions

Accomplishments

Criticism

Additional Information

Biography Links