Heather Mizeur
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Heather R. Mizeur (born 6 December 1972) is an American politician from Maryland. A Democrat, she will be a member of the Maryland House of Delegates from January 2007, having won both the Democratic primary on September 12, 2006 and the general election on November 7 in the state's 20th district .
A former Takoma Park councilwoman, Mizeur's district includes Takoma Park, Silver Spring, Hillandale, White Oak and parts of Colesville - see map. The entirety of the district is located within Montgomery County.
Educated at Blue Mound High School and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Mizeur won a Truman Scholarship in 1994.
She then moved to Maryland to work in Washington, D.C., first in the office of U.S. Rep. Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky (D-PA) then in those of U.S. Reps Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) and Joseph P. Kennedy II (D-MA). After five years as Director of State Affairs at the National Association of Community Health Centers, she became U.S. Sen. John Kerry's (D-MA) Director of Domestic Policy in 2003, a post she still holds.
She was elected to the Takoma Park City Council in 2003 and didn't seek re-election in 2005, in order to devote herself to her legislative run. She served as Maryland's State Director for the Kerry-Edwards campaign in the 2004 presidential election and, since 2005, has been a member of the Democratic National Committee.
In 2006, she ran for the Maryland House of Delegates in District 20. In the Democratic primary on September 12, she was the top vote-getter in a seven-candidate field for three places, receiving 8,176 votes. In so doing, she defeated two incumbent delegates and won almost 1,800 votes more than she would have needed to defeat the fourth placed finisher. She then went on to the general election, where the three Democratic nominees faced only nominal Republican opposition. All three were elected by a wide margin.
A lesbian, she lives with her partner Deborah Mizeur (née Veres). Her election campaigns have both won the backing of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund.
