Elizabeth Esty Biography
Elizabeth Esty is an American politician born on 25th August 1959 in Oak Park, Illinois, United States. She served as the U.S. Representative of Connecticut’s for 5th congressional district from 2013 to 2019.
Elizabeth Esty Age
Elizabeth Esty is 59 years old as of 2018.
Elizabeth Esty Net worth
Elizabeth Esty has an estimated net worth of $3.18 million.
Elizabeth Esty Family
Elizabeth Esty parents are not indicated to her record but her father worked as an engineer in a construction company. Her family were moving numerously during her childhood.
Elizabeth Esty Husband
Elizabeth Esty is married to Daniel C. Esty in 1984. Her husband is an Enviromental Lawyer and policy maker he is the Hillhouse professor at Yale University with appointments at Yale Law School and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. The couples were blessed with three children.
Elizabeth Esty Children
Elizabeth Esty has three children Sarah Esty (daughter), Thomas Esty (son) and Jonathan Esty (son).
Elizabeth Esty Education
Elizabeth Esty graduated from Winona Senior High School. She later joined Harvad College in 1981 where she got her B.A, and a J.D from Yale School of Law in 1985. She also studied at the International Relations at L’Institut d’études politiques in Paris for an year in Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship.
Elizabeth Esty Election
Elizabeth Esty In 2008, challenged the Republican State Representative Al Adinolfi of Connecticut’s for 103rd Assembly District. She defeated him with 51%-49%. In 2010, was challenged with Adinolfi in a rematch, and defeated her with 51%–49%. The U.S Democratican Congressman Chris Murphy of Connecticut’s 5th and congressional district decided to retire in order to run for the U.S. Senate. Then Esty decided to run for the same same seat. She was endorsed by EMILY’s List. She also won the newspaper endorsements from The New York Times, Hartford Courant and the Torrington Register-Citizen. She defeated Daniel Roberti and State House Speaker Chris Donovan in the primary.
In the November 6 general election, Esty defeated State Senator Andrew Roraback to become the district’s next representative. Esty won despite the opposition of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose PAC channeled over a million dollars to her opponent. In 2014, Esty defeated her Republican opponent, Mark Greenberg, earning 53.2% of the vote to Greenberg’s 45.8%, despite Greenberg spending more than $1,600,000 of his own money on the campaign. In 2016, Esty defeated Republican Clay Cope, the First Selectman of Sherman, Connecticut, earning 58% of the vote to Cope’s 42%. Esty won 27 of the district’s 41 cities and towns – including seven in which Donald Trump outperformed Hillary Clinton. Esty won Cope’s hometown of Sherman.
She announced on April 2, 2018, that she would not seek re-election in the 2018 midterm election. She made this announcement some weeks after publication of accusations of sexual harassment against her chief of staff, Tony Baker. Esty had for a considerable time failed to examine these charges or exert any discipline but had instead approved a severance package for Baker that included $5,000 from public funds and, in addition, provided Baker with her personal recommendation for a position on the Sandy Hook Promise Council. Republicans and even Democrats, local newspapers, and bi-partisan citizens called for her resignation. At the general election, the District nevertheless remained in Democratic hands.
Elizabeth Esty House Representative
Elizabeth Esty introduced the Collinsville Renewable Energy Promotion Act in February 2013 allow the town of Canton, Connecticut, to take over two lapsed licenses from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in order to refurbish two old local dams. The dams would be used to produce hydroelectric power. In May 2013, she voted against repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. She then subsequently voted to delay the individual and business mandates in the law by one year.; she co-authored the STEM Education Act (H.R. 5031; 113th Congress) (H.R. 1020; 114th Congress). The bill strengthens science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education efforts and expands the definition of STEM to include computer science. She said that “STEM education is critical to preparing our students for high-demand careers in engineering, manufacturing, and information technology.” According to Esty, she frequently hears from “manufactures and small business owners that it’s increasingly difficult to find workers with the right skill sets to fill the jobs in demand.” The House easily approved this bill with a vote of 412-8 and it was signed into law in October 2015.
She also authored the Gold Star Fathers Act. This bill extends formal hiring preference for federal jobs to fathers of disabled and deceased veterans.(Previously, only Gold Star mothers were eligible for hiring preference.) Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced companion legislation in the U.S. Senate. The bill passed both chambers of Congress, and it was signed into law by Barack Obama on October 8, 2015. Through her role on the Committee and Transportation and Infrastructure, Esty helped craft the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act, which was passed by Congress on December 3, 2015, and signed into law by then-President Obama on December 4, 2015. Esty sponsored an amendment to ease weight limits on the weight of trucks transporting dairy products, which reduces the number of trucks needed to transport milk. That amendment was included in the final legislation. Esty also sponsored amendments to increase Buy America requirements for buses and rail cars, establish new National Electric Vehicle Charging, Hydrogen, Propane, and Natural Gas Fueling Corridors, and protect pollinator habitat and forage on transportation rights-of-way.
Esty sponsored multiple pieces of legislation designed to help cities and towns combat the opioid addiction epidemic. On March 3, 2016, she introduced the Prevent Drug Addiction Act, which calls for new consumer education campaigns on the risks of opioid addiction, strengthen training requirements for medical practitioners eligible to prescribe opioids or participate in opioid treatment programs, require opioid treatment programs to make acceptable arrangements for patients to receive needed medications on days when the program is closed for business to reduce the risk of relapse for patients in recovery, and create a new drug management program under the Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Plan to prevent high-risk Medicare beneficiaries from becoming addicted to prescription drugs. In May 2016, Esty served on the conference committee charged with crafting legislation to combat opioid addiction. Portions of Esty’s Prevent Drug Addiction Act were included in the bill, including the pain management program for Medicare Part D beneficiaries. The final legislation, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, was signed into law on July 22, 2016.
Connecticut’s Fifth District includes Newtown, Connecticut, which was the site of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012. Esty serves as a vice-chair of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force. She is an original cosponsor of the Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act, which would require background checks on all commercial firearm sales. On May 29, 2014, Esty and a bipartisan group of House lawmakers introduced an amendment to increase funding to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The amendment passed the House by a vote of 260-145. On June 22, 2016, Esty and several Democrats held a 26-hour sit-in on the floor of the House of Representatives to protest Speaker of the House Paul Ryan’s refusal to allow the House to vote on legislation related to gun violence prevention.
According to Esty’s office, Esty reclaimed more than $10,000,000 in government benefits – including overdue veterans’ benefits, Social Security payments, Medicare payments, and delayed tax refunds – for residents of Connecticut’s Fifth District through her first two terms in office.
Esty was ranked as the 62nd most bipartisan member of the U.S. House of Representatives during the 114th United States Congress (and the most bipartisan member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Connecticut) in the Bipartisan Index created by The Lugar Center and the McCourt School of Public Policy that ranks members of the United States Congress by their degree of bipartisanship (by measuring the frequency each member’s bills attract co-sponsors from the opposite party and each member’s co-sponsorship of bills by members of the opposite party). Shortly after the 115th Congress convened in January 2017, Esty was named the Vice Ranking Member of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. She was also elected to the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, where she served as Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs.
In partnership with Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock of Virginia, Esty introduced the Promoting Women in Entrepreneurship Act and the INSPIRE Women Act, a pair of bills designed to improve federal support for women in science, technology, math, and engineering fields. Both bills passed the House and Senate by unanimous consent and are pending signature by President Donald Trump.
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Elizabeth Esty News
Representative Elizabeth Esty, a Connecticut Democrat, said on Monday that she would not seek re-election this year after days of controversy over what she called her failure to protect women on her staff from sexual harassment and threats of violence from her former chief of staff. Representative Esty, a vocal supporter of the #MeToo movement, has faced a storm of criticism since it was reported last week that she waited three months to fire her former chief of staff, Tony Baker, after Anna Kain, another former staff member who once dated him, said he had sexually harassed and threatened to kill her. “I have determined that it is in the best interest of my constituents and my family to end my time in Congress at the end of this year and not seek re-election,” Representative Esty said in a statement on Monday afternoon.
“Too many women have been harmed by harassment in the workplace,” she said. “In the terrible situation in my office, I could have and should have done better. To the survivor, I want to express my strongest apology for letting you down.” Over the weekend, Connecticut Democrats called for Representative Esty to step down, including Martin M. Looney, the president pro tempore of the State Senate, who said on Saturday that the three-term congresswoman “should do the right thing and resign” if Ms. Kain’s allegations were true. Representative Esty, 58, disputed none of Ms. Kain’s allegations. On Monday, she asked the House Ethics Committee to review how her office handled the allegations against Mr. Baker, and his termination in 2016, a move that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said was appropriate.
Ms. Kain said Mr. Baker began to sexually harass and verbally abuse her when he became her boss in 2014, and once punched her at work. He repeatedly threatened to punish her if she came forward, she said. “He would threaten that if I ever told anyone or if I ever went to the Ethics Committee, he would prevent me from ever working in politics again,” she said in an email. She said Mr. Baker also told her that if she reported the abuse, Representative Esty “would lose re-election.” “She was my hero and that thought was too much to bear,” Ms. Kain said. She declined to comment on Representative Esty’s decision not to seek re-election. Representative Esty’s announcement on Monday was welcomed by Connecticut’s Democratic establishment, including Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who called her decision “the right one.”
“The truth is, too many facts about how this incident was handled fall short of appropriate standards for responsible and responsive leadership,” the governor said in a statement. The announcement also offered a potential opening to Republicans. Matt Gorman, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said his party would contest her seat, which covers territory represented by a Republican, Nancy Johnson, from 1983 to 2007. The abuse allegations, and Representative Esty’s response to them, were reported last week by The Washington Post and The Connecticut Post, which said Mr. Baker stayed on the congresswoman’s staff for three months after the accusations first emerged.
In a statement last week in which she referred to Ms. Kain, Ms. Esty said she had “failed to protect her and provide her with the safe and respectful work environment that every employee deserves.” She said an investigation conducted after Ms. Kain came forward found “the threat of violence was not an isolated incident, but part of a pattern of behavior that victimized many of the women on my staff.” Mr. Baker declined a request to be interviewed on Monday, but through a spokesman, Andrew Ricci, said that he disputed none of Ms. Kain’s allegations except for the claim that he had punched her.
Source: nytimes.com
