Representative Susan Molinari

Susan Molinari (born March 27, 1958, in Staten Island, New York) is an American politician, communications executive, and former television journalist. A member of the Republican Party, she emerged from a prominent Staten Island political family: she is the daughter of Marguerite (Wing) Molinari and Guy V. Molinari, a lawyer and perennial Republican officeholder who served in the New York State Assembly, the U.S. House of Representatives, and as Staten Island Borough President. Her grandfather, S. Robert Molinari, was an Italian-born Republican politician who also held elective office, making her political career part of a multigenerational family tradition in public service and Republican Party politics.

Molinari was raised on Staten Island and educated in New York, ultimately attending the State University of New York at Albany (then known as SUNY Albany, now the University at Albany, The State University of New York), from which she graduated with a degree in communications. Her academic training in communications would later underpin both her political messaging and her subsequent work in broadcasting and public affairs. Before entering national politics, she began her public career in New York City government, serving on the New York City Council, where she built a reputation as a moderate Republican voice and gained experience in constituent service and urban policy.

Her transition to national office came at the start of 1990, when her father, incumbent Republican U.S. Representative Guy Molinari, resigned his Staten Island-based seat in the U.S. House of Representatives on January 1, 1990, to become Borough President of Staten Island. Susan Molinari ran in the special election to succeed him in what was then New York’s 14th congressional district. On the eve of that election, The New York Times endorsed her candidacy, noting that she “promises to add a moderate Republican voice to the city’s Democratic-dominated congressional delegation.” In March 1990 she defeated Democrat Robert Gigante by a margin of 59 percent to 35 percent, entering the U.S. House of Representatives that year. Although she ultimately represented Staten Island for three full terms, her overall congressional tenure extended from 1990 to 1997, encompassing service during a significant period in American political history and spanning five terms in office, including the initial special-election term and subsequent re-elections.

Following the 1990 census and subsequent redistricting, Molinari ran in the newly drawn New York 13th congressional district in 1992. She won the Republican primary with 75 percent of the vote and went on to defeat New York City Councilmember Sal Albanese in the general election by 56 percent to 38 percent, securing her first full term. She was re-elected in 1994 with 71 percent of the vote and again in 1996 with 62 percent, demonstrating consistent electoral strength in a district that included Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn. Throughout her House service, she participated in the legislative process and represented the interests of her constituents, while also rising within the Republican leadership ranks. She served as vice chairwoman of both the House Republican Conference and the Republican Policy Committee, positions that underscored her status as a party communicator and strategist and contributed to her reputation as a rising star in Republican politics.

In her committee work, Molinari initially received assignments on the House Small Business Committee and the Public Works and Transportation Committee. In the 102nd Congress (1991–1993), she traded those assignments for a seat on the Education and Labor Committee, reflecting an interest in domestic and social policy. When Republicans gained control of the House in the 104th Congress (1995–1997), she again shifted her focus, leaving Education and Labor to join the House Budget Committee, where she participated in debates over federal fiscal policy. Ideologically, she was regarded as one of the more moderate and, on some social questions, more liberal Republicans. She signed on to the 1994 Contract with America, supporting measures such as a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution and opposing the placement of U.S. troops under United Nations command. At the same time, she supported abortion rights during much of her congressional tenure and voted with Democrats for the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), a key element of President Bill Clinton’s social policy agenda. She framed her positions in terms of “family values,” favored reductions in Social Security taxes, middle-class tax cuts, and tax credits for families, and worked with Christopher O. Ward to acquire the Staten Island Railroad to re-establish freight service to the Howland Hook Marine Terminal. On crime and punishment, she supported an expanded federal death penalty and other tough-on-crime measures and is particularly remembered as the principal sponsor of Federal Rules of Evidence 413–415, which broadened the admissibility of prior sexual offense evidence in sexual assault and child molestation cases; as she stated on the House floor in 1994, these rules were intended to “strengthen the legal system’s tools for bringing the perpetrators of these atrocious crimes to justice.”

Molinari’s prominence within the party culminated in her selection as keynote speaker at the 1996 Republican National Convention, a highly visible role that confirmed her status as a national figure in Republican politics. Nonetheless, she became increasingly uneasy with the tense ideological atmosphere that followed the Republican takeover of the House and the speakership of Newt Gingrich, a dynamic she later described in her autobiography. In June 1997 she announced that she would resign from Congress to pursue a career in television journalism, and her resignation became effective on August 2, 1997. She then joined CBS News as a co-host of the network’s morning program, CBS This Morning. Her hiring was controversial, with critics questioning whether a recently active partisan politician could maintain journalistic objectivity, and others faulting her on-air style as either too stiff or too perky. After approximately nine months, her tenure at CBS ended in 1998; she announced she was pregnant at the conclusion of that run, and her second child was born in late January 1999. She later hosted a public affairs program titled The Flipside and became a frequent guest commentator on major political talk shows, drawing on both her communications training and her congressional experience.

Following her departure from daily broadcasting, Molinari built a substantial career in lobbying, public affairs, and corporate public policy. After working as an independent lobbyist, she joined The Washington Group in October 2001, becoming the firm’s president and chief executive officer. She later served as president of Ketchum Public Affairs and as chief executive officer and chairman of The Washington Group after its acquisition by Ketchum Inc. In 2006, her firm received $300,062 from home mortgage giant Freddie Mac to lobby on its behalf. In 2008 she joined the law and public policy firm Bracewell & Giuliani as a senior principal, working alongside former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in a practice focused on government relations and strategic communications. Expanding her influence in the technology sector, she became vice president for public policy at Google in 2012, a position she held until 2018, where she represented the company’s interests on regulatory and policy matters in Washington and internationally.

In addition to her corporate and lobbying work, Molinari has remained active in advocacy and nonprofit initiatives. She has supported the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), which operates a national sexual assault hotline and partners with more than 1,000 rape crisis centers, sponsoring legislation during her time in Congress and later heading a task force to develop an Internet-based counterpart to the existing hotline. She has also served as chair of The Century Council, a not-for-profit organization funded by major distillers such as Bacardi, Inc., dedicated to combating drunk driving and underage drinking through education, research, and law-enforcement partnerships. Internationally, she has been a member of the Advisory Board of WeProtect, a global nonprofit coalition focused on protecting children online and combating online child sexual abuse and exploitation, and she serves on the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank concerned with international affairs and transatlantic relations.

Although she has maintained a public profile, much of Molinari’s later political activity has been conducted behind the scenes or in a bipartisan context. She supported George W. Bush’s presidential campaign in 2000 but later joined moderate Republicans such as former President Gerald Ford, David Rockefeller, and Richard Riordan in the Republican Unity Coalition, which opposed Bush’s support for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. She declined to run for office despite periodic speculation, including rumors of a 2006 challenge to U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and a possible 2009 New York City mayoral bid. In January 2010 she briefly considered running for the U.S. Senate against Senator Kirsten Gillibrand before publicly announcing three days later that she would not enter the race. Reflecting her evolving stance on social issues, in 2013 she was a signatory to an amicus curiae brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of same-sex marriage in Hollingsworth v. Perry. In 2012 she stated on CNN that, after having children, she had shifted from supporting abortion rights to an anti-abortion position. In 2020 she crossed party lines publicly by speaking at the Democratic National Convention in support of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, making her, along with former Democratic Senator Zell Miller, one of the few figures to have delivered a keynote address at one party’s national convention and later speak at the other party’s convention.

Molinari’s personal life has also intersected with her public career. She was first married to John Lucchesi. On July 3, 1994, while serving in Congress, she married fellow Republican U.S. Representative Bill Paxon of New York. The couple has two daughters and, as of 2006, resided in Alexandria, Virginia. Throughout her career—from her early days on the New York City Council and her seven-year tenure in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1990 to 1997, through her work in television journalism, lobbying, corporate public policy, and nonprofit advocacy—Susan Molinari has remained a notable figure in late 20th- and early 21st-century American political and public life, combining partisan Republican roots with a record of moderation and occasional bipartisan engagement.