Baldwin, Tammy (1962-…), became a United States senator in 2013. Baldwin, a Democrat, represents Wisconsin. Prior to her election to the Senate, Baldwin had served in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1999. Baldwin became the first openly gay person elected to the Senate.
Tammy Suzanne Green Baldwin was born in Madison, Wisconsin, on Feb. 11, 1962. Her parents divorced soon after she was born, and she lived with her maternal grandparents for most of her childhood. Baldwin attended Smith College in Massachusetts, earning a bachelor’s degree in government and mathematics in 1984. She earned a law degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1989. She worked as a lawyer in private practice after receiving her law degree.
In 1986, Baldwin was elected to the Board of Supervisors for Dane County, Wisconsin. She served on the board until 1994. In 1992, she won election to the Wisconsin Assembly, a chamber of the state’s legislature. She served in the chamber from 1993 to 1999.
Baldwin first publicly identified as a lesbian during her 1986 campaign. In 1998, she was elected to represent Wisconsin’s Second Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. She became the first woman to represent Wisconsin in the House. Her election also marked the first time an openly gay candidate won a first term in the U.S. Congress. (Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the first openly gay member of Congress, had kept his sexual orientation private at the time of his first election.) Baldwin was reelected every two years through 2010.
In the House, Baldwin became known as one of the chamber’s most liberal members. In 1999, she voted against the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which had separated commercial banking from investment banking. She worked to increase the availability of affordable health care. She opposed efforts to privatize (shift from government to private ownership) such programs as Medicare and Social Security. She also supported programs to promote renewable energy, to increase funding for mental health care, and to provide job training for military veterans. Baldwin also voted against the U.S. military invasion of Iraq in 2003. 
In 2012, Baldwin defeated her Republican opponent, former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson, to win election to the U.S. Senate. Upon taking office, Baldwin became Wisconsin’s first woman senator and the first openly gay U.S. senator. She won reelection to the Senate in 2018.
