Hillary Rodham Clinton:
A Champion for Working Families
Hillary Clinton has been an advocate for working families for more than thirty years, from her days in youth religious groups to her years as First Lady of the United States.
Young HillaryBorn in Chicago, Illinois, on October 26, 1947, Hillary is the daughter of Dorothy Rodham and the late Hugh Rodham. She grew up in Park Ridge, Illinois and attended public school.
“My father was a small businessman, who taught us by his example the values of hard work and responsibility,” Hillary said of her parents. “My mother organized our daily lives and fed us with her devotion, imagination and great spirit. I learned from them the importance of families: how parents through their dedication enable their children to have a better life. I think that’s the most important lesson I’ve ever learned.”
The New York Daily News Series
Stand and Deliver
She Hitched Her Star to a Wagon
’60s Turmoil Turns Scholar Into Rebel
The Girl Who Became Candidate Hillary
After graduation from Wellesley College in 1969, Hillary enrolled in Yale Law School, where she met Bill Clinton, a fellow law student. They married in 1975, and their daughter Chelsea was born in 1980. Chelsea is now a student at Stanford University.
Living in Arkansas, Hillary practiced law and worked on a number of initiatives benefiting families, including education and health care. In Bill Clinton’s second term as Governor, she chaired the Arkansas Education Standards Committee, which resulted in increased support for public education, higher standards and teacher testing. She founded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, and introduced to the state the Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youth, based on a program she first observed while visiting Israel.
Hillary served on the Board of Directors of several successful companies such as Wal-Mart and TCBY; non-profit organizations, including the Children’s Defense Fund and Arkansas Children’s Hospitals; and the Center on Education and the Economy, then based in Rochester, N.Y. She was named one of the Top 100 Lawyers in America by American Lawyer Magazine.
In 1993 newly elected President Bill Clinton named Hillary to chair the Task Force on National Health Care Reform. After months of meeting with families and health care professionals, the Task Force recommended the Health Care Security Act of 1994. “When people ask me about health care reform, I tell them that I am disappointed we were not able to make more progress.” Hillary said. “Now I’m from the school of smaller steps, but I believe we must continue to make progress. It’s still important that we increase access to quality health care for working families.”
Hillary led administration efforts to pass the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides health insurance for millions of children in working families; she worked for greater funding for breast cancer research and treatment for breast cancer, prostate and colon cancer, osteoporosis and juvenile diabetes. A strong supporter of a woman’s right to choose, Hillary has worked to increase access to family planning and reproductive health care. She is a strong supporter of the HMO Patient’s Bill of Rights, and taking action to strengthen Medicare and include prescription drug benefits.
When Gulf War veterans were unable to get answers to their concerns about Gulf War syndrome, Hillary led a Special Committee that met with veterans and their families, resulting in new policies and improved care. And she has continued to work for children’s hospitals: the proceeds from her best selling book It Takes A Village went to benefit children’s hospitals. In 1999, she led efforts to secure funding for pediatric training in children’s hospitals to ensure quality medical care.
Continuing her work on behalf of public education, Hillary has supported more accountability in public schools coupled with greater investment including higher standards, quality teachers, school construction and modernization, smaller class size, and safe and orderly schools. She supported increases in after-school programs, which enable students to continue learning in safe environments, and arts and music education, which raise the overall level of student performance.
Hillary has championed efforts to keep our children and families safe, leading the effort to organize a national campaign to prevent youth violence that is now underway. She has called for common sense gun control measures, and a voluntary, unified ratings system to give parents more information about their children’s media choices.
Hillary has been a leader on other issues important to working families, including the Family and Medical Leave Act. She brought to the White House two historic conferences on child care and early childhood development, calling attention to the need to increase the availability of quality child care for working parents, and to enable our children to reach their full potential.
Making adoption easier and reforming our nation’s foster care system have been important priorities for Hillary. She worked to ensure passage of the Adoption and Safe Family Act of 1997, making it easier for children to move from foster care to permanent homes and increase the number of adoptions.
Hillary is committed to expanding opportunity to working families. She supported the balanced budget and believes this country must continue on the path of fiscal responsibility, with targeted tax cuts to enable families to meet their responsibilities, such as long-term care and college costs.
“No one who takes the responsibility to work hard every day should have to raise their family in poverty,” Hillary says. That’s why she supports raising the minimum wage, and equal pay for equal work. She worked with former Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin to increase microcredit programs, which make investment capital available to small businesses.
At the White House, Hillary has featured American art and talent at events ranging from the traditional Easter Egg Roll to Millennial Evenings, the first ever cybercasts from the East Room. Her program to Save America’s Treasures brought attention and support to important historic sites, including Seneca Falls and other communities in New York where women first called for the right to vote.
Traveling abroad on behalf of our country, Hillary has been an eloquent voice for human rights and democracy, highlighting the need for education for girls and boys, and access to economic opportunity and health care for women and men. She spoke about the importance of religious tolerance in Morocco, Turkey and Uzbekistan, and human rights in China. At the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in Beijing, Hillary said, “We must respect the choices that each women makes for herself and her family. If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights.”
In the summer of 1999, Hillary took a listening tour through New York, talking with people about their concerns and hopes for the future. A number of prominent New Yorkers asked Hillary to become a candidate to succeed Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the United States Senate. Before making that decision, she wanted to hear from the people who had the most at stake.
“The issues people talked to me about – their concerns for their children’s education, for health care, for a better future for their families -were the issues I’ve worked on all my life,” Hillary said. ” People told me they wanted leaders who were on their side, working with them to make a difference. That’s the leadership I offer.”
On February 6, 2000, with her family by her side, Hillary officially announced her candidacy for the U.S. Senate.