Shelley Berkley (D-NV) is just an
all-around awesome Jewish woman in Congress. Born Rochelle Levine, her working
class family moved to Nevada
when she was a teenager because of the increased economics opportunities in the
West. She was the first member of her family to graduate from college. To put
herself through school (both her undergraduate and law degrees), she worked as
a keno runner and cocktail waitress in the casinos in Las Vegas. After graduating from law school,
she worked for Vegas casinos as legal counsel.
Berkley’s political career began in 1982-1984,
when she served in the Nevada Assembly. In 1990, she was appointed as the Vice
Chair of the Nevada University and Community College System Board of
Regents by the governor of Nevada,
and was reelected to the position twice, serving until 1998.
She has been a member of the US
House of Representatives ever since 1998, the first time she ran for Nevada’s 1st congressional
district seat. (The 1st district includes most of Las Vegas and its surrounding area, which is
the home to a large Jewish community.) Berkley
won the Democratic primary with over 80% of the vote, and took the general
election, too. She has been reelected in every election since, serving in
Congress for seven terms (about fourteen years).
She is the first female congressperson
from her district and the second from Nevada
as a whole, and she is the first Jewish woman and second Jew to serve in
Congress from Nevada.
I think it’s safe to label Berkley as a friend of
women’s rights. NARAL rates her as a 100% supporter of the pro-choice movement.
She is also endorsed by the Feminist Majority PAC, EMILY’s List, the Women’s
Campaign Forum, and the National Women’s Political Caucus. She is also a NOW
supporter and spoke at the 2004 NOW conference.
Described as a “pro-Israel hawk”
by the Jewish Week, Berkley
has ties with AIPAC and the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA). She has said
that “Israel
has the right to continue building in its capital, inside an area that has
always been a proposed part of a future State of Israel. As Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has
said, ‘Jerusalem
is not a settlement.’ It is the eternal, undivided capital of Israel.” Berkley has cosponsored several pieces of legislation to
protect Israel
and recognize its right to self-defense.
Berkley is now running for the US Senate.
After Senator John Ensign (D-NV) resigned because of a scandal about an
extramarital affair he had with a staffer’s wife, Republican Dean Heller was
appointed to take Ensign’s vacated position as senator. Berkley will be up against Heller, who has
consistently showed his pro-life stripes and is against gay marriage. It looks
like it will be a tight race, since polls have the two within a relatively
small margin.
The election will be in November,
the same time as the presidential election. I think there will be many very
interesting and significant results of this election, and I’m certainly looking
forward to it!
I dub Shelley Berkley an inductee into the Shining Stars of Davida - strong women and men who make us feminists proud.
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