Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz is featured in this month's Marie Claire magazine. As head of the Democratic National Committee, the outgoing and charismatic legislator is tasked with helping raising money for President Obama's reelection in 2012. In a Q&A, she explains how she got involved in politics and her diagnosis with breast cancer. Here are my favorites:
What are you most proud of in your career?
My top priority legislatively has been taking care of children. I passed the Protect Our Children Act, which focuses on Internet safety and going after child predators online. Also swimming-pool safety legislation—I’ve been championing that for years. As a breast-cancer survivor, I passed the Early Act—the Education and Awareness Requires Learning Young Act—into law, as part of health-care reform, because young women are really like the redheaded stepchild of breast cancer. It’s considered an older women’s disease, but there are a large number of young women—25,000 every year under 45—who are diagnosed with breast cancer. So it was important to educate them about the risk and to help health-care providers understand that you’ve got to take them seriously.
You’re friends with Gabby Giffords—what was it like to see her back in Congress for the recent vote debt-ceiling bill?
It was absolutely incredible. You know, I’m so proud of her. She’s fighting so hard to recover and come back, and she’s made tremendous progress. It was really incredible. I was so glad to help her and walk her into the chamber and see the members, who were very crabby and cranky after a long hard-fought battle. They were reminded what our service is all about.
You can read the rest of the article, here.
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