When she was first appointed to the position in 2009, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand '88, D-N.Y., was lampooned by critics as "the accidental senator." Recently, however, Gillibrand has been making national headlines as a key player in overturning the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy and passing a bill that will provide medical aid to 9/11 rescue workers, according to The New York Times.
The legislation to repeal a 17-year ban on gays serving openly in the military was the result of a two-year effort that began shortly after then-Gov. David Paterson, D-N.Y., tapped Gillibrand to replace outgoing senator Hillary Clinton. Gillibrand took the bill under her wing after meeting Lt. Dan Choi in June 2009, Gillibrand's press secretary Glen Caplin said in an interview with The Dartmouth. Choi, a National Guardsman and West Point graduate, was facing a military discharge because of his open homosexuality.
"After hearing his story about how corrosive the policy was, she looked into it and saw that more than 13,000 soldiers had been dismissed, many of them in mission-critical areas, many of them with foreign language expertise," Caplin said.
Melissa Saphier '12, who worked as an intern in Gillibrand's office in summer 2009, said she was working in the office when the senator announced her views against the policy. The backlash towards Gillibrand's views came immediately, Saphier said.
In spite of Republican opposition, Gillibrand set to work on a proposal to for an 18-month suspension of the current discharge practices, according to The Times.
After polling Democratic senators and learning that they were 10 votes shy of the 60 needed to introduce the bill, Gillibrand asked the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., to hold hearings on the policy, The Times reported.
The Feb. 2010 hearings included testimony from Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who both said they opposed the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, according to The Times.
"We have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens," Mullen said during a hearing on Feb. 2. "For me, personally, it comes down to integrity theirs as individuals, and ours as institutions."
Mullen's testimony helped secure the fate of the bill and "got the ball rolling," Caplin said.
The Senate voted to repeal "don't ask, don't tell" by a margin of 65 to 31 on Dec. 18.
"What a great feeling it is to know that you've accomplished a goal that will literally change the lives of thousands of people," Gillibrand wrote in an e-mail to her supporters following the vote. "But we're not done yet."
Shortly after the bill passed, Gillibrand and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., worked with Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., to reach a compromise on the 9/11 rescue workers' health care bill that would reduce the cost of health care without reducing benefits for the responders, according to a press release from Gillibrand's office.
Legislation to provide health care to workers in the post-9/11 relief efforts was first introduced in the summer of 2009 and passed the House in Sept. 2010.
The measure initially failed to pass in the Senate, but Gillibrand and Schumer worked with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to reintroduce the bill before the end of 2010, The Times reported.
The Senate unanimously passed the measure on Dec. 22.
"These are important issues that New Yorkers and the American people wanted to see progress on," Caplin said. "And [Gillibrand is] thankful for the opportunity to serve New Yorkers and fight these issues."
Gillibrand's next move will be overhauling the Senate's filibuster rules, Gillibrand told Jon Stewart on The Daily Show on Tuesday.
Gillibrand became the first female Dartmouth graduate to be elevted to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2006, The Dartmouth previously reported.
Prior to holding public office, Gillibrand worked as special counsel at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and at two prominent law firms.
