Ladda Tammy Duckworth (born March 12, 1968) is an American politician and retired Army National Guard lieutenant colonel serving as the junior United...
Ladda Tammy Duckworth (born March 12, 1968) is an American politician and retired Army National Guard lieutenant colonel serving as the junior United States Senator from Illinois since 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, she represented Illinois's 8th district in the United States House of Representatives from 2013 to 2017.
Duckworth was educated at the University of Hawaii and George Washington University. A combat veteran of the Iraq War, she served as a U.S. Army helicopter pilot. In 2004, after her helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired by Iraqi insurgents, she suffered severe combat wounds, which caused her to lose both of her legs and some mobility in her right arm. She was the first female double amputee from the war. Despite her grievous injuries, she sought and obtained a medical waiver that allowed her to continue serving in the Illinois Army National Guard until she retired as a lieutenant colonel in 2014.
Duckworth ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 2006, then served as Director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs from 2006 to 2009 and as Assistant Secretary for Public and Intergovernmental Affairs at the United States Department of Veterans Affairs from 2009 to 2011. In 2012, Duckworth was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where she served two terms. Duckworth was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016, defeating Republican incumbent Mark Kirk. She is the first Thai American woman elected to Congress, the first person born in Thailand elected to Congress, the first woman with a disability elected to Congress, the first female double amputee in the Senate, and the first senator to give birth while in office. Duckworth is the second of three Asian American women to serve in the U.S. Senate, after Mazie Hirono, and before Kamala Harris.
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John Hickenlooper
John Wright Hickenlooper Jr. (; born February 7, 1952) is an American politician, businessman and geologist serving as the junior United States Senato...
John Wright Hickenlooper Jr. (; born February 7, 1952) is an American politician, businessman and geologist serving as the junior United States Senator from Colorado, having defeated incumbent Cory Gardner in 2020. A member of the Democratic Party, Hickenlooper was mayor of Denver from 2003 to 2011 and governor of Colorado from 2011 to 2019.
Born in Narberth, Pennsylvania, Hickenlooper is a graduate of Wesleyan University. After a career as a petroleum geologist, he co-founded the Wynkoop Brewing Company in Denver in 1988. Hickenlooper was elected the 43rd mayor of Denver in 2003, serving two terms. After incumbent governor Bill Ritter said that he would not seek reelection, Hickenlooper announced his intention to run for the Democratic nomination in January 2010. He won an uncontested primary and faced Constitution Party nominee Tom Tancredo and Republican Party nominee Dan Maes in the general election. Hickenlooper won with 51% of the vote and was reelected in 2014, defeating Republican Bob Beauprez.
As governor, he introduced universal background checks and banned high-capacity magazines in the wake of the 2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting. He expanded Medicaid under the provisions of the Affordable Care Act, halving the rate of uninsured people in the state. Having initially opposed marijuana legalization, he has gradually come to support it.
He sought the Democratic nomination for president of the United States in 2019 but dropped out before primaries were held. He subsequently won the Democratic nomination to challenge Cory Gardner, the one-term Republican incumbent U.S. Senator from Colorado. He won the general election and assumed office on January 3, 2021. At 68, Hickenlooper became the oldest first-term senator to represent Colorado.
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