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EMILY’s List Recommends…
Tammy Duckworth
for the U.S. Senate
Running to represent Illinois in the Senate, Tammy Duckworth will
fight for Illinois’ hardworking, middle-class families.
Born in Bangkok, Thailand, Tammy is an Iraq War veteran, a
former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs,
a former head of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs, and a
retired Lieutenant Colonel in the Illinois Army National Guard.
Tammy’s father was a Marine and military service is a tradition in
the Duckworth family. When Tammy joined the Reserve Officers’
Training Corps as a graduate student at George Washington
University, very few combat options were available to women. Being a
helicopter pilot — Tammy’s choice — was one of them.
Tammy eventually deployed to Iraq where, as she was copiloting a
Black Hawk helicopter on a mission just north of Baghdad in
November of 2004, a rocket propelled grenade hit her helicopter. It
was a rainy day and she had already flown multiple missions that
morning. She had only been back in the air for a short time when she
heard small arm rounds hit her aircraft and then the blast from the
exploding grenade. The crew landed the helicopter safely but she lost
both of her legs and shattered her right arm in the blast. When she
regained consciousness 11 days later, she was in the hospital at Walter
Reed, where she fought through months of physical therapy before
taking her first steps on prosthetic legs. Tammy was awarded the
Purple Heart, the Air Medal, and the Combat Action Badge for her
military service in 2004.
Tammy remained committed to public service throughout her
recovery and beyond — she advocated for Veterans and disability
rights and fought to draw attention to the challenges other wounded
Veterans were facing. As she said herself about her time spent in
recovery, “Four months in bed is a long time to watch politicians make
bad decisions on C-SPAN.” With support from EMILY’s List, she ran for
Congress in 2006 for Henry Hyde’s old seat and came within just three
points of winning.
After serving as the head of the Illinois Department of Veterans
Affairs for two years, Tammy was appointed by President Obama to
serve as an assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Veterans
Affairs, where she led innovative efforts to expand support for family
caregivers, coordinated the Homeless Veterans Program, and
promoted early recognition of mental health conditions. The highestranking woman in the department, Tammy promoted a nationwide
survey of female Veterans and worked to make the Department of
Veterans Affairs more responsive to their needs.
In 2012, Tammy ran for Congress — where no woman who has
directly engaged in combat had ever served — and won. Today, she
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represents Illinois’ Eighth Congressional District in the House of
Representatives.
Tammy is married to a fellow Iraq War Veteran, Major Bryan W.
Bowlsbey, whom she met through ROTC. Fluent in Thai and
Indonesian, Tammy holds a master’s degree in International Affairs and
a PhD in Human Services.
Just two weeks after Tammy was reelected to the House — and
almost exactly 10 years after her helicopter was shot down in Iraq —
her first child, a daughter named Abigail O’kalani Duckworth
Bowlsbey, was born.
Today, Tammy still reunites with her Black Hawk crew each year
on the anniversary of the attack, and has said her experience made her
realize that “at the end of the day, it’s not about Democrats or
Republicans…it’s about the fact that on that day, those men carried
me out when they didn’t have to. They thought I was dead but
wouldn’t leave me behind. I believe strongly that we shouldn’t leave
fellow Americans behind just because they are struggling either.”
The Political Situation
Tammy will be running for a seat currently held by Republican
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Senator Mark Kirk. Kirk is vulnerable, and it’s hard to see a way for
Democrats to win back the Senate majority without a victory in
Illinois. With strong support from EMILY’s List, we can get one seat
closer to taking the Senate back from the Republicans by sending a
true champion for women and families to the Senate.
Kirk won by a narrow margin in 2010, running for Barack Obama’s
former Senate seat. Since then, Kirk’s conservative agenda has proven
to be a disaster for women and Illinois families — and his attacks on
Tammy show his desperation to keep his seat.
Kirk stands in stark contrast to Tammy. He voted against the Lilly
Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act. He opposed
expanding access to affordable health care for all Americans and even
voted to prohibit private insurance from providing abortion
coverage. And just this year, he cast the deciding vote to block limits
on carbon pollution — putting the needs of special interests ahead of
Illinois families. In one recent interview, he called African American
communities the ones “we drive faster through.” And in June of 2015,
Kirk was overheard using racist and sexists slurs to describe the
personal life of one of his colleagues in the Senate. After his
comments were revealed, he waited five days to apologize — and
only did so after multiple news outlets — and Tammy — publicly
called for him to do so.
Kirk’s supporters will be deep pocketed and focused on defending
his seat so he can keep pushing his right-wing agenda. He likes to brag
that his victory in 2010 shows “a Republican can and will win in
Illinois.”
Let’s prove him wrong by making sure a pro-choice, progressive
champion like Tammy Duckworth is elected instead.
The Issues
Tammy said she will “always be a strong supporter of investing in
our nation’s defense. Our military must have the personnel, training,
and equipment it needs to protect and defend the nation. Our troops
should have the very best technology available when they go into
harm’s way, as I did in Iraq when I was equipped with a Black Hawk
helicopter. But defense spending must be appropriate and we must be
vigilant against waste.”
When she was in high school, Tammy’s dad lost his job and her
family used food stamps to make ends meet and keep food on the
table for herself and her brother. She understands firsthand what
middle-class families are up against, so she’s fought for policies in
Congress that benefit Americans working hard for a fair shot.
Tammy knows the importance of the Family and Medical Leave
Act. After she was wounded in Iraq, Tammy’s husband lost his job as an
Army Reserve Officers Training Corps instructor at the end of 12 weeks
of medical leave because he was with her at the hospital, so she is
acutely aware of the need to provide support for families at significant
times. At the VA, Tammy helped implement the Caregivers and
Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act, signed into law by President
Obama, which provides compensation, training, and relief for family
members who leave their jobs to take care of a disabled Veteran.
In Congress, Tammy introduced legislation to support small
businesses, including adding an amendment to the National Defense
Authorization Act to increase the amount of the defense budget that
goes toward small businesses, which led to $10 billion in new work
annually. She’s an original cosponsor of legislation to help Americans
get the training they need to apply for manufacturing jobs, and she’s
supported legislation to help employers invest in job training to keep
our economy competitive and help out-of-work Americans
successfully apply for jobs.
When Tammy first arrived in Congress, she realized the doors to
her office were too heavy for someone in a wheelchair to open, so she
had an opener installed, saying, “I want every place that I go to be
accessible to everyone.”
Tammy said that “supporting women should be a national
priority,” and she stood up for equal pay for equal work as a cosponsor
of the Paycheck Fairness Act. She voted to reauthorize the Violence
Against Women Act and believes the decision to have an abortion
should be made by a woman and those closest to her, not by the
federal government. “I fully support a woman’s right to control her own
body,” she said. “I do not support any restrictions beyond Roe v. Wade
on a woman’s right to choose or her access to safe, affordable
reproductive health services.”
When Tammy is elected, she’ll become the first woman senator to
have seen combat — and only the third woman of color to ever serve
in the Senate, where only one woman of color currently serves.
Her experiences and her commitment to championing the rights
of women and hardworking Americans have made her an
indispensable leader in Congress.
She said “I view my time now as a bonus, and that has allowed me
to speak up without fear.”
We need voices like Tammy Duckworth’s in the Senate now more
than ever, fighting for Illinois families and bringing a much-needed
perspective to the table.
EMILY’s List members must stand alongside Tammy to ensure she
gets the strong start she needs as she fights to help take back the
Senate, protect the Supreme Court, and become the next senator
from Illinois. n