Marcy Kaptur, U.S. Representative, Ohio (9th District)

Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur proudly represents the working people of Ohio’s Ninth Congressional District. She is currently the longest serving woman in the history of Congress and ranks among the most senior Members of the 118th Congress.

Background
Congresswoman Kaptur, a native Toledoan, lives in the same modest house where she grew up.

She is a Polish-American with humble, working class roots. Her family operated a small grocery store and her mother later served on the original organizing committee of a trade union at the Champion Spark Plug factory in Toledo.

After graduating from St. Ursula Academy, she became the first member of her family to attend college, earning a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Wisconsin (1968) and later a master’s degree in urban planning from the University of Michigan.

After working for 15 years as a city and regional planner, primarily in Toledo and Chicago, she accepted an appointment as a domestic policy advisor to President Jimmy Carter. During his Administration, she helped maneuver 17 housing and neighborhood revitalization bills through Congress.

In Congress
In 1981, while pursuing a doctorate in urban planning and development finance at MIT, she was recruited by the Lucas County Democratic Party to run for Congress against a first-term Republican. Although she was outspent by a 3-to-1 margin, Kaptur parlayed a strong economic message during the 1982 recession to stage a nationally-recognized upset.

In Washington, Kaptur fought vigorously to win a seat on the House Appropriations Committee. Today she serves as the first woman to serve as Ranking Member of the influential House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, which she considers an honor given the Ninth District stretches much of the southern Lake Erie coastline.