Debbie Dingell Biography
Debbie Dingell (Deborah Ann Dingell) is an American Democratic Party politician who has been the U.S. Representative for Michigan’s 12th congressional district since 2015. She is the widow of John Dingell, who was the longest-serving U.S. congressperson.
Debbie worked as a consultant to the American Automobile Policy Council. She was a superdelegate for the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Dingell is active in several Michigan and Washington, D.C., charities and serves on a number of charitable boards. She is a founder and past chair of the National Women’s Health Resource Center and the Children’s Inn at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dingell is also a member of the Board of Directors for Vital Voices Global Partnership.
Debbie Dingell Education
Dingell is a 1975 graduate of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
Debbie Dingell Career
Dingell is a member of the Democratic National Committee from Michigan and chaired Vice President Al Gore’s campaign in Michigan in 2000. In 2004, Dingell also helped secure the Michigan Democratic primary and general election vote for John Kerry in Michigan.
In November 2006, she was elected to the Board of Governors of Wayne State University in Detroit. She and U.S. Senator Carl Levin (D – MI) were the proponents of moving up Michigan’s presidential primary before February 5, to attempt to garner greater political influence for Michigan during the 2008 Democratic primaries. This resulted in Michigan almost losing its delegates’ votes in the Democratic National Convention.
When Carl Levin announced his retirement from the U.S. Senate at the end of his term in 2015, Debbie Dingell indicated that she was interested in running for his seat.
When former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm declined to run for the seat, a Politico writer declared Dingell to be one of the front-runners for the Democratic nomination, alongside Representative Gary Peters. However, Dingell chose not to run, and Gary Peters was elected to Levin’s seat.
In 2018, she introduced a law that would give the Consumer Product Safety Commission the authority to recall defective firearms.
Her husband, John Dingell, was a key lawmaker that initially granted the firearms industry this exemption from the 1972 Consumer Product Safety Act that created the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Debbie Dingell Congress
Debbie Dingell indicated that she planned to run for her husband’s congressional seat after he announced his retirement. On August 5, she won the Democratic primary, and on November 4, she won the general election, defeating Republican Terry Bowman.
When she was sworn in, she became the first U.S. non-widowed woman in Congress to succeed her husband – who is the longest-serving member of Congress in history with 59 years served.
Her husbands father, John Dingell Sr., held Michigan’s 12th district for 22 years before his son won it. All together the Dingells have represented this district and its predecessors for 86 consecutive years as of 2019.
The district was numbered as the 15th from 1933 to 1965, the 16th from 1965 to 2003, the 15th again from 2003 to 2013, and has been the 12th since 2013.
Debbie Dingell Age | How Old Is Debbie Dingell?
She was born on November 23, 1953 in Detroit, Michigan, United States. She is 65 years old as of 2018.
Debbie Dingell Family
Dingell descended from one of the Fisher brothers, owners of Fisher Body, a GM founder, she has served as president and as executive director of Global Community Relations and Government Relations at GM.
Debbie Dingell Father
She is the daughter of David Insley. While growing up, her father was addicted to prescription drugs.
“I remember as I got older, walking to pick up his prescription at the drug store. I remember his sleeping all day, and being awake at night,” says Dingell.
She says, he experienced mood swings and paranoia, which created an environment where she and her family were always on edge.
“I remember one night, when they were having a huge screaming match, he had a gun. He took the handles off the doors so that nobody could come in or out. I got everybody into a bedroom and put beds against the door tried to hide in closets, I called the police, but nobody came nobody answered,” says Dingell.
Fortunately, for her father, she says, he got the help he needed through treatment, and eventually got sober.
Debbie Dingell Sister
She has a sister, Mary Grace, who also toke prescription drugs, a problem she lived with into her adult life, until she overdosed and died, at the age of 44.
Debbie Dingell Husband | John Dingell First Wife
Debbie Dingell was married to Michigan Congressman John Dingell from 1981 till his death on February 7, 2019 at the age of 92. Debbie had grown up as a Republican, but became a Democrat soon after marrying Dingell. Their marriage lasted for 38 years.
Her husband, John Dingell, was an American politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from December 13, 1955, until January 3, 2015. He was the longest-serving U.S. Congressperson, representing Michigan for over 59 years.
Debbie Dingell and her husband John DingellDebbie Dingell Husband Death
Debbie Dingell’s husband died on February 7, 2019 at the age of 92 at his home in Dearborn. In 2019, John Dingell entered hospice care, with terminal prostate cancer, for which he chose to forego treatment. Due to his death, Debbie is now a widow.
On September 17, 2018, Dingell had suffered an apparent heart attack and was hospitalized at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.
Debbie Dingell Children | John Dingell Children
Dingell is a mother of four children; two daughters Jeanne Dingell, Jennifer Dingell, and two sons John Dingell, Chris Dingell.
Debbie Dingell Net Worth
She has an estimated net worth of $5978057.
Debbie Dingell Twitter
Debbie Dingell Domestic Violence
Debbie Dingell Interview
Debbie Dingell News
John Dingell, 92, longest-serving member of Congress, dies
Former Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., the longest-serving member of Congress who played a key role in many pieces of landmark legislation, has died. He was 92. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer last year.
“Congressman Dingell died peacefully today at his home in Dearborn, surrounded by his wife Deborah,” the office of his wife, Rep. Debbie Dingell, said in a statement.
“He was a lion of the United States Congress and a loving son, father, husband, grandfather, and friend,” the statement said. “He will be remembered for his decades of public service to the people of Southeast Michigan, his razor sharp wit, and a lifetime of dedication to improving the lives of all who walk this earth.”
Dingell first arrived to Congress in 1955, taking over the seat held by his father John Dingell, Sr., who had died earlier that year, and the younger Dingell continued to serve in the House for more than 59 years. He announced in 2014 that he would not seek re-election and instead his wife, Debbie Dingell, ran for his seat and is now serving her third term.
Debbie Dingell tweeted Wednesday, “Friends and colleagues know me and know I would be in Washington right now unless something was up. I am home with John and we have entered a new phase. He is my love and we have been a team for nearly 40 years.”
Dingell first experienced Capitol Hill as a House Page from 1938 to 1943 during which time he witnessed historic moments.
“We saw some rather great things,” he told the House Historian in an oral interview in 2012. The President [Franklin D. Roosevelt] declared war the day after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor [December 8, 1941]. We saw Winston Churchill on the 26th of December, 1941, when he came to address the Congress. We saw the President give State of the Union messages, and, not infrequently, to address the Capitol or the House on other matters. It was a very enriching experience.
Dingell served in the Army during World War II and was one of the war’s last veterans to serve in Congress. After the war, he attended Georgetown University and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and a law degree.
He helped sponsor the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1957, helped pass Medicare in the House and sponsored the Endangered Species Act. And while he initially support the Vietnam war, he later opposed it and called on President Richard Nixon to withdraw U.S. troops.
Dingell, who introduced his father’s universal, single-payer health insurance bill every Congress, became one of the original authors of what would become the Affordable Care Act.
Former President Barack Obama awarded Dingell the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014, saying the congressman “built a peerless record of his own” over the course of six decades.
“He gaveled in the vote for Medicare, helped lead the fight for the Civil Rights Act. For more than half a century, in every single Congress, John introduced a bill for comprehensive health care. That is, until he didn’t have to do it anymore. I could not have been prouder to have John by my side when I signed the Affordable Care Act into law,” Obama said at the time.
Obamasaid in a statement Thursday night that “John Dingell’s life reminds us that change does not always come with a flash, but instead with steady, determined effort. Over the course of the longest congressional career in history, John led the charge on so much of the progress we take for granted today.”
Dingell also chaired the House Energy and Commerce Committee for several terms — where he was an imposing figure who grilled witnesses, often powerful corporate leaders — but lost the gavel to former Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who contended that Dingell slowed environmental legislation because of his ties to the auto industry.
U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., on Thursday night called Dingell “my dear friend” and said his wife has been carrying on his legacy in Congress. “I know that all of us in Michigan are sending her and their family and many friends our love and support at this time,” Stabenow said.
“Congressman John Dingell — the Dean of the House and my dear friend — was not merely a witness to history. He was a maker of it,” Stabenow said.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said the state of Michigan lost one of its greatest leaders. “The Congressman’s grit, humility and humor taught us all that we can disagree without being disagreeable, while still finding common ground and working together to get things done.”
And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement: “Today, we have lost a beloved pillar of the Congress and one of the greatest legislators in American history.”
“His leadership will endure in the lives of the millions of American families he touched,” Pelosi said. “We hope it is a comfort to Chairman Dingell’s beloved wife, Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, and their entire family that so many mourn their loss and pray for them at this sad time.”
Former President George W. Bush said in a statement that he spoke with Dingell Thursday afternoon. “I thanked him for his service to our country and for being an example to those who have followed him into the public arena,” Bush said.
Former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton said, “There are few major legislative triumphs since 1955 that John didn’t have a key hand in passing.”
After his congressional career, Dingell developed a new reputation for being a prolific and hilarious tweeter.
“Wife is working late tonight. Might eat ice cream for dinner.#YOLO,” he said in one tweet.
He tweeted in 2014, “Staff has now informed me of what a Kardashian is. I’m only left with more questions.”
Dingell also posted tweets mocking his old age. “Golly. You don’t tweet for a week or two & you start getting calls at the house asking if you’re still kicking. Old people have lives, too.”
Source: www.nbcnews.com