Gwen Graham

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Gwendolyn Graham (born January 31, 1963) is an American attorney and a politician of the Democratic Party who served as the U.S. Representative from Florida's 2nd congressional district for one term, from 2015 to 2017. She is a candidate in the Florida 2018 gubernatorial election. The primary will be held on August 28, 2018.

She is the daughter of Bob Graham, a former United States Senator and Governor of Florida.

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Early life and career

Graham was born in Miami Lakes, Florida to Bob and Adele (née Khoury) Graham. She has lived in Tallahassee since 1978, when her father became governor. Graham was graduated from Leon High School in 1980.

Graham received her bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1984 and her law degree from American University's Washington College of Law in 1988. After law school, she worked as an associate at the Andrews & Kurth law firm in Washington, D.C.

In 2003, Graham joined her father's 2004 presidential campaign. When he dropped out of the race following a heart attack, Graham joined Howard Dean's presidential campaign, before ultimately helping coordinate John Kerry's campaign efforts in Florida.

Graham worked for Leon County Schools as an administrator, including as director of employee relations.

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U.S. House of Representatives

In 2013, Graham announced her candidacy against incumbent Republican Congressman Steve Southerland in 2014. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced they would target the race and provide support to Graham. Graham was one of just two Democrats in the entire country to defeat an incumbent Republican that year, beating Southerland in the November election by more than 2,800 votes.

Prior to her swearing in, Graham said both parties need new leadership in Congress and that she would not vote for Nancy Pelosi to be speaker of the House. Graham voted for Rep. Jim Cooper of Tennessee instead. Graham voted for Cooper again when the House voted on the new Speaker after John Boehner announced his resignation.

Graham was ranked as the ninth most bipartisan member of the U.S. House of Representatives during the 114th United States Congress (and the second most bipartisan member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida) in the Bipartisan Index created by The Lugar Center and the McCourt School of Public Policy that ranks members of the United States Congress by their degree of bipartisanship (by measuring the frequency with which each member's bills attract co-sponsors from the opposite party and each member's co-sponsorship of bills by members of the opposite party). On a scale of zero to one hundred, Graham scores eight as a lifetime rating by the conservative lobbying organization, American Conservative Union.

Graham advocated for Congressional reforms, including legislation to prohibit members of Congress from using federal funds to pay for first-class airfare and a bill to prevent future government shutdowns.

Graham introduced and passed legislation to help Israel develop an anti-tunneling defense system to detect, map, and destroy underground tunnels between the Gaza Strip and Israel. Graham joined Florida Democrats Ted Deutch, Lois Frankel, and Alcee Hastings in opposing the Iran nuclear deal.

Focusing on constituent services, Graham returned more than $2.5 million in benefits owed to North Florida seniors, families, and veterans.

Graham voted repeatedly to defend the Affordable Care Act from repeal and supported fixes to the law. She supports the legalization of medical marijuana and the decriminalization of recreational marijuana in Florida. Graham is pro-choice with a 100% ranking from Planned Parenthood and she supports same-sex marriage and LGBT equality, with a 100% ranking from the Human Rights Campaign.

Graham supports comprehensive immigration reform. She voted to protect the DACA program for young immigrants. She supports bipartisan legislation to grant permanent legal status to refugees of the Haiti earthquake. She voted to place more stringent safeguards on refugee vetting.

Gwen Graham supports gun control. In Congress, she joined Congressman John Lewis in the sit-in against gun violence. She co-sponsored legislation to strengthen background checks and prevent those on the terrorist watch list from purchasing guns.

On the environment, Graham co-sponsored bipartisan legislation with Congressman David Jolly and Senator Bill Nelson to oppose oil drilling off the beaches of Florida. She rallied almost the entire Florida Congressional delegation to support the Apalachicola Bay Restoration Act. She has voted for the Keystone XL pipeline, based on studies that showed the pipeline would generate less greenhouse gases than transporting the oil by rail, truck, and barge. Graham voted in favor of having the Environmental Protection Agency re-examine its Waters of the United States rule with more input from those it would affect. Graham supported Florida counties in their campaigns against fracking in Florida. She used public records to help expose and investigate Governor Rick Scott's response to a massive sinkhole in Central Florida. Graham supports purchasing land south of Lake Okeechobee to restore the Everglades River of Grass.

Committee assignments

Committee on Agriculture
- Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management
- Subcommittee on Biotechnology, Horticulture, and Research
Committee on Armed Services
- Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces
- Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
- Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces

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Reaction to redistricting

In 2015, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the congressional redistricting plan was a partisan gerrymander in violation of the Fair Districts Amendment. The ensuing court-ordered redistricting shifted most of Tallahassee, which had anchored the 2nd district and its predecessors for almost half a century, to the 5th district. Most of Graham's black constituents were drawn into the 5th as well. To make up for the loss in population, the 2nd was pushed to the south to take in territory from the heavily Republican 3rd and 11th districts. Graham now found herself in what was, on paper, one of the most Republican districts in the nation. Had it existed under the redrawn lines in 2012, it is hypothesized that the new 2nd would have become the third-most Republican district in the state and given Mitt Romney 64 percent of the vote in 2012. By comparison, Romney carried the old 2nd in 2012 with 52 percent of the vote.

Graham had only two options to continue representing at least some of her previous constituents in Congress. She could have run in the Democratic primary for the heavily Democratic, black-majority 5th District against that district's 24-year incumbent, Corrine Brown. Her home in Tallahassee is just outside the boundaries of the 5th district, but members of Congress only have to live in the state they wish to represent. The 5th had absorbed most of Tallahassee, as well as almost all of Graham's black constituents. Had Graham run in the 5th, however, she would have been running in a district that would have been more than 67 percent new to her. Had she sought a second term in the redrawn 2nd, she would have been running in a district that was more than 12 points more Republican than its predecessor, even though she would have retained 68 percent of her former territory.

In a YouTube video emailed to her fundraising list, Graham announced that she would not run for reelection to the House in 2016, denouncing a process that resulted in Tallahassee being split into "two partisan districts". She said that she was considering running for Governor of Florida in the 2018 election.

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2018 gubernatorial election

On May 2, 2017, Graham announced her intention to seek the Democratic Party nomination in the 2018 election to serve as governor of Florida. She will be one of four Democrats seeking the party nomination.

Graham's message has focused on improving Florida's public schools, protecting the environment, and supporting economic policies counter to those of Governor Rick Scott, such as raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and implementing required paid sick leave.

She has actively campaigned as an alternative to 20-years of one party, Republican rule in Florida and promises to defend the state from the immigration, environmental, and social policies of President Donald Trump that she has been critical of.

In her campaigns for Congress and Florida's governorship, she is continuing the Workdays tradition established by her father, where the Grahams spend a shift working alongside Floridians at their jobs. Senator Graham performed 408 Workdays throughout his terms as senator and governor. To date, Congresswoman Graham has performed more than 50.

Gwen Graham Archives - Page 5 of 53 - Florida Politics

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Personal life

Graham lives in Tallahassee. She married Mark Logan in 1985, and they have three children together. While raising her children, Graham worked for 13 years as a self-described "stay-at-home mom". Graham and Logan divorced, and Graham is now married to Stephen Hurm.