I’d like to introduce you to my friend Kirsten Engel. She and her daughter have their first campaign ad up for her campaign for US House of Representatives in Arizona-06.
You can see the video here:
Kirsten and I grew up together in the Hyde Park-Kenwood neighborhood on the southside of Chicago (the Obama's neighborhood). We went through public school together where she was always one of the smartest (and nicest) kids in our class.
It doesn't surprise me at all to see she went on to graduate magna cum laude from Brown before going on to get her law degree at Northwestern University.
Her impressive professional resume speaks volumes for where her heart is.
Fresh out of law school she clerked for Judge Myron Bright of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. She went on to the Environmental Protection Agency where she was Staff Attorney from 1987-1990. She then held the same position with the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund.
She taught law at Tulane for eight years then went back into public service becoming Acting Chief of the Environmental Protection Division of Massachusetts Office of Attorney General and later Senior Council for the Public Protection Bureau.
From there she went back into academia serving as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Arizona College of Law before moving into the position she currently holds as Professor of Law/Environmental Law Program Co-Director. She has also been a Visiting Associate Professor at Harvard, Vanderbilt, and the University of California School of Law.
Kirsten and I reconnected in 2016 when she ran for the Arizona State House of Representatives for district 10 (Tucson area), an office she held for four years before running for Arizona State Senate in 2021. She has run three times and won three times.
When US Rep Ann Kirkpatrick announced she would not run again for the US House Kirsten stepped down from her State Senate seat to commit herself full-time to run for the US House.
Arizona-06 is exactly the sort of marginal district that we must hold if Democrats are to retain control of the U.S. House of Representatives. I hope you’ll check out Kirsten and throw some support her way. Arizona changed the district to lean more the Republicans way during redistricting but Kirsten is just the woman to keep it Democratic. She is doing a great job fundraising but will need all the help she can get.
Please consider contributing to her campaign. I already have and am about to do so again.