Representative Geraldine Anne Ferraro

Geraldine Anne Ferraro served as a Representative from New York in the United States Congress from 1979 to 1985. A member of the Democratic Party, Geraldine Anne Ferraro contributed to the legislative process during 3 terms in office.

Geraldine Anne Ferraro’s service in Congress occurred during a significant period in American history. As a member of the House of Representatives, Geraldine Anne Ferraro participated in the democratic process and represented the interests of constituents.

Geraldine Anne Ferraro (August 26, 1935 – March 26, 2011) was an American politician, diplomat, and attorney who served in the United States House of Representatives, representing New York’s 9th congressional district from 1979 to 1985. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the party’s nominee for vice president in the 1984 presidential election, running alongside presidential candidate and former vice president Walter Mondale; this made her the first female vice-presidential nominee representing a major American political party. She was also a journalist, author, and businesswoman. Born in Newburgh, New York, Ferraro grew up in New York City and worked as a public school teacher before training as a lawyer. She joined the Queens County District Attorney’s Office in 1974, heading the new Special Victims Bureau that dealt with sex crimes, child abuse, and domestic violence. In 1978 she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where she rose rapidly in the party hierarchy while focusing on legislation to bring equity for women in the areas of wages, pensions, and retirement plans. In 1984, former vice president and presidential candidate Mondale, seen as an underdog, selected Ferraro to be his running mate in the upcoming election. In doing so Ferraro also became the first widely recognized Italian American to be a major-party national nominee. The positive polling the Mondale-Ferraro ticket received when she joined soon faded, as damaging questions arose about her and her businessman husband’s finances and wealth and her congressional disclosure statements. In the general election, Mondale and Ferraro were defeated in a landslide by incumbent President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George H. W. Bush. Ferraro twice ran campaigns for a seat in the United States Senate from New York, in 1992 and in 1998, both times starting as the front-runner for her party’s nomination before losing in the primary election. She served as the Ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights from 1993 until 1996 during the presidential administration of Bill Clinton. She also continued her career as a journalist, author, and businesswoman, and served in the 2008 presidential campaign of Senator Hillary Clinton. Ferraro died in 2011 from multiple myeloma, 12 years after being diagnosed.