Representative Mary Bono Mack

Mary Bono Oswald (née Whitaker and formerly Mary Bono Mack, born October 24, 1961) is an American politician, businesswoman, and lobbyist who represented California in the United States House of Representatives from 1998 to 2013. A member of the Republican Party, she served eight terms in Congress, representing Palm Springs and most of central and eastern Riverside County, in what was initially California’s 44th congressional district and, following redistricting after the 2010 census, the 36th district. Over fifteen years in the House, she participated actively in the legislative process, sat on several key committees, and rose to chair the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, becoming the first Republican woman to hold that gavel.

Bono was born Mary Whitaker in Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of Karen Lee (née Taylor), a chemist, and Dr. Clay Westerfield Whitaker, a physician and World War II veteran. In 1963, her family moved to South Pasadena, California, where she was raised. She graduated from South Pasadena High School in 1979 and went on to attend the University of Southern California, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in art history in 1984. In her youth she was an accomplished gymnast, and during her early twenties she worked as a cocktail waitress, experiences that preceded her later public life and business activities.

On March 1, 1986, she married singer, actor, and future politician Sonny Bono. The couple moved to Palm Springs, California, where they owned and operated a restaurant. Sonny Bono entered local politics and served as mayor of Palm Springs from 1988 to 1992 before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994. The Bonos had two children, Chesare (born April 25, 1988) and Chianna (born February 2, 1991). Sonny Bono died in a skiing accident on January 5, 1998, during his second term in Congress, leaving vacant the House seat that Mary Bono would soon seek. Following his death, she briefly dated Brian Prout, drummer of the country music band Diamond Rio; they became engaged in 2001 but did not marry.

Bono entered electoral politics in the wake of her husband’s death. In 1998 she won the Republican nomination for the special election to succeed him in California’s 44th congressional district and was elected to Congress on April 7, 1998. She won election to a full term on November 3, 1998, and would go on to serve eight consecutive terms, remaining in the House until January 2013. That same year, Republican leadership added her to the House Judiciary Committee in anticipation of impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton, making her the only Republican woman on the committee during the impeachment inquiry. She voted along party lines on all four articles of impeachment, both in committee and on the House floor, even as some moderate Republicans opposed Articles II, III, and IV. Her role on the Judiciary Committee during this high-profile episode significantly raised her national profile.

Throughout her congressional career, Bono served on several committees, including the Committee on Energy and Commerce, the Committee on Armed Services, the Committee on the Judiciary, and the Committee on Small Business. Within Energy and Commerce, she served on the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology and the Subcommittee on Environment and Economy, and she became chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade, where she oversaw issues related to intellectual property, telecommunications, energy, and health care. She was the first Republican woman to chair this subcommittee. Bono was also co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Prescription Drug Abuse and co-chaired the Recording Arts and Sciences Caucus, while participating in the America Supports You Caucus, the Intellectual Property Promotion and Piracy Prevention Caucus, the International Conservation Caucus, and the Congressional Hispanic Conference as an associate member. She was affiliated with the Republican Main Street Partnership, reflecting her alignment with more moderate Republican positions. In 2012, she formed and chaired the House Women’s Policy Committee, which brought together 24 female Republican lawmakers from 17 states to highlight policy issues of particular concern to women.

Bono’s legislative work included consumer protection, veterans’ services, and civil rights issues. In 2011, her bill H.R. 2715, which amended and improved the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, was signed into law with bipartisan support, addressing concerns about the implementation of product safety regulations. As the daughter of a World War II veteran, she played a key role in the creation of Department of Veterans Affairs clinics in Blythe and Palm Desert, California, expanding access to health care for veterans in her district. In December 2010, she was one of fifteen Republican House members to vote in favor of repealing the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, thereby supporting the right of openly homosexual service members to serve. After the 2010 United States census, her district was renumbered as the 36th district and redrawn to be more Democratic and more heavily Hispanic. In the 2012 election, she was defeated in a notable upset by Democratic challenger Raul Ruiz, a physician, who received 53 percent of the vote to her 47.1 percent.

Following her departure from Congress, Bono continued to engage in public policy and advocacy work. In March 2013, she became a senior vice president at Faegre Baker Daniels Consulting, a Washington, D.C.-based federal affairs firm. That June, she helped lead the firm’s expansion into Silicon Valley in her home state of California. Also in June 2013, she was named co-chair, alongside former Federal Trade Commission chairman Jon Leibowitz, of the 21st Century Privacy Coalition, an industry-backed group focused on updating U.S. privacy and data security laws. In August 2013, she appeared as a panelist at the National Journal’s Women 2020 event, where she discussed gender inequality and her experiences as a woman in Congress. In 2013 she was also a signatory to an amicus curiae brief submitted to the Supreme Court in support of same-sex marriage in Hollingsworth v. Perry, reflecting her continued engagement with civil rights issues. In 2018, she founded Integritas by Bono, a political affairs consulting firm.

Bono’s later professional activities extended beyond lobbying and consulting. In October 2018, following the Michigan State University sex abuse scandal, she was named interim president and chief executive officer of USA Gymnastics. Her tenure ended four days later, when she resigned amid criticism over her prior work as a lobbyist for USA Gymnastics and public concern after a photograph surfaced of her having marked out the Nike logo on her sneakers in protest of Nike’s support for NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. She has also been involved in international humanitarian efforts; after attending a lecture by mountaineer-turned-humanitarian Greg Mortenson, she worked with him to support the construction of schools for girls in remote regions of Pakistan. She is quoted in Mortenson’s book “Three Cups of Tea” as saying, “I’ve learned more from Greg Mortenson about the causes of terrorism than during all our briefings on Capitol Hill.”

In her personal life, Bono has married several times since Sonny Bono’s death. After her engagement to Brian Prout ended without marriage, she wed Wyoming businessman Glenn Baxley on November 24, 2001, approximately eighteen months after they met in Mexico; the couple filed for divorce in 2005. On December 15, 2007, she married Representative Connie Mack IV, a Republican congressman from Florida, in Asheville, North Carolina. They announced an amicable separation in May 2013 and divorced later that year. On September 27, 2015, she married former astronaut and retired Navy rear admiral Stephen S. Oswald. In May 2024, she lost a legal dispute with Cher over royalties from Cher’s recordings with Sonny Bono. Under a 1978 divorce settlement between Cher and Sonny Bono, Cher was entitled to half of the publishing revenue, but Mary Bono had stopped payments in 2021 after invoking a copyright termination clause. A federal judge ruled that the royalties were a separate contractual obligation and ordered her to pay Cher approximately $418,000 in withheld earnings; it was reported in 2025 that Bono is appealing the ruling.