Stephanie Herseth Sandlin

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin is a member of the United States House of Representatives from South Dakota. She is the co-chair for the administration of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of Democrats who describe themselves as moderates committed to "fiscal discipline and strong national security" to use their words. Among her committee assignments in the House are those of Agriculture, Veteran's Affairs and Natural Resources.

Born in 1970, Herseth Sandlin attended Georgetown University where she graduated with highest honors (summa cum laude) with a B.A. in Government. She then went on to receive a law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center, later serving on the faculty of that institution.

After an unsuccessful attempt to win election to the U.S. House in 2002, she stood for election again in a special election in June of 2004 to fill the seat vacated by Representative Bill Janklow who had resigned the office. She won this election in a very close contest and then, in November of that same year, was re-elected to a full term. In subsequent elections for the same seat, she won by large margins.

Committee assignments

In the 111th Congress, Herseth Sandlin will serve on the following House committees: Veterans’ Affairs, Agriculture, and Natural Resources. In addition, she is also serving on the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

Source: Press release announcing committee assignments

Congressional caucuses

Herseth Sandlin is the co-chair for the administration of the Blue Dog Coalition. She is also a member of the Congressional Native American Caucus and the Congressional Internet Caucus.

Issues

Health care

She voted against both the November 2009 and final March 2010 Democratic health care bills, saying they were too expensive.

I'm so disappointed that the partisanship surrounding this debate has produced a bill that contains a number of good provisions, but is too deeply flawed to gain my support.

Unfortunately, this bill is too expensive. It does not do enough now or in the future to contain costs or to lower insurance rates. And it is marred by special deals. Not only have we missed a golden opportunity to make real reforms to our health care system, I fear that the partisan atmosphere left in the wake of this debate will prevent progress on the other critically important business of the nation–none more important than the growing fiscal problems that threaten to overwhelm our children's future.

The final bill includes a number of good provisions that I support, including

eliminating insurance companies' ability to exclude people with preexisting conditions or to cancel coverage when someone gets sick; allowing children to stay on their parents' insurance until age 26; and creating transparent health insurance exchanges for individuals and small businesses, where private insurers compete for their business.

Voting ratings

Organization	Rating	Date
AFL-CIO
American Civil Liberties Union
American Conservative Union
Americans for Democratic Action
Cato Institute
Christian Coalition
Human Rights Campaign
League of Conservation Voters
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
NARAL
National Rifle Association
National Right to Life Committee
National Taxpayers Union
U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Sources: Links to the voting ratings guides of the above organizations together with brief descriptive information on the organizations themselves, may be found at: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Interest_group/Catalogs

2008 Election

Candidate	Party	Vote total	Percentage
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin	Democrat	256,041	67.56%
Chris R. Lien	Republican	122,966	32.44%

Source: Federal Election Results - final official tally

2010 Election

In the 2010 U.S. Congressional election, Herseth Sandlin faces a primary challenge due to her vote against the Democratic-supported healthcare bill in March 2010, one of the 34 Democrats to have voted against it.