Terri Sewell

Terri Sewell
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Alabama's 7th district
Incumbent
Assumed office January 3, 2011
Preceded by	Artur Davis
Personal details
Born	(1965-01-01) January 1, 1965 Huntsville, Alabama, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Alma mater	Princeton University St Hilda's College, Oxford Harvard Law School
Religion	Protestantism
Website	House website

Terrycina Andrea "Terri" Sewell^[1] (born January 1, 1965)^[2] is an American politician, elected in 2010 as the U.S. Representative for Alabama's 7th congressional district. The 7th district includes most of the Black Belt, as well as most of the predominantly black portions of Birmingham, Tuscaloosa and Montgomery.

Sewell is a member of the Democratic Party and the first black woman elected to Congress from Alabama.^[3] Sewell is the only Democrat in Alabama's seven-member congressional delegation. Sewell and Republican Martha Roby, also elected in 2010, are the first women elected to Congress from Alabama in regular elections.^[4]

A native of Selma, Sewell is a graduate of Princeton University, Harvard Law School and Oxford University. She is a public finance attorney.

Early life and education

Terrycina Sewell, known as "Terri," was raised in Selma. She is the daughter of Andrew A. Sewell, a former athletic coach, and Nancy Gardner Sewell, a former City Councilwoman and now retired librarian of Selma. Her mother was the first black woman elected to the Selma City Council. Both parents held careers in the Selma public school system.

Sewell was the first black valedictorian of Selma High School. Her mother's family was politically active, offering its homestead to activists who came for the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches to gain voting rights. Sewell spent her childhood summers in Lowndes County, Alabama with her maternal grandparents. Her grandfather, a Primitive Baptist minister and a farmer, instilled in her a love for the land, an appreciation of hard work, and the importance of her faith. Her grandfather and the members of Beulah Primitive Baptist Church gave her a deep understanding of the Black Belt Region and its people.

Sewell graduated with honors from Princeton University and received a scholarship from U.S. News and World Report, among others. A lifelong Democrat, during the summers while in college, she worked on Capitol Hill for 7th congressional district congressman Richard Shelby, as well as for Senator Howell Heflin. She was a leader on the college campus, serving in various roles including class vice-president, class representative to the Student Union, and spearheading the admission office’s effort to set up a Minority Student Recruitment office to recruit more minority students to the university.^[5]

Upon graduation from college, Sewell was featured on NBC’s Today Show as one of the “Top Collegian Women.” She was chosen as one of the “Top Ten College Women in America” by Glamour Magazine. She received the Afro-American Studies Thesis Prize for her senior thesis, Black Women in Politics: Our Time Has Come, which featured a personal interview with Shirley Chisholm, the first black U.S. Congresswoman.^[6] Sewell continued her education, receiving a Masters degree with first-class Honours from Oxford University. At the age of 25, she published her Masters’ thesis on the election of the first black members of British parliament as a book titled, Black Tribunes: Race and Representation in British Politics (1993).^[7]

Sewell attended Harvard Law School with the help of an NAACP Legal Defense Fund scholarship, graduating in 1992. In law school, she served as an editor of the Civil Rights Civil Liberties Law Review.^[8] She published an article titled “Selma, Lord, Selma,” about the legal struggles in Selma, in the Harvard Black Letter Journal, (vol. 8, Spring 1991).

Legal career

After graduation, Sewell served as a judicial law clerk in Birmingham, Alabama to the Chief Judge U. W. Clemon,^[9] United States District Court (AL-ND), who was the first black federal judge appointed in Alabama.

Sewell began her legal career in 1994 at the Wall Street law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell. A securities lawyer for more than a decade, she gained experience in finance and the capital markets. Sewell provided free legal services to the homeless, mentored girls of color in NYC high schools through the program Dreams into Action, and served on the Alumni Advisory Board of Sponsors of Educational Opportunity (SEO), a not-for-profit organization providing education, leadership training and Wall Street internships to students of color. Through her involvement with SEO, she served as the co-chair of the Community Assistance Fund, which provided $300,000,000 of aid and assistance to organizations serving communities of color affected by the events of September 11, 2001.

Sewell returned to Alabama in 2004 to assist her mother in the care of her father. As the first black female partner in the Birmingham law firm of Maynard, Cooper, & Gale, P.C., Sewell has distinguished herself as one of the only black public finance lawyers in the State of Alabama. She served as a lawyer helping to raise money for public projects for some of the state’s most underserved public entities, many in Alabama's 7th congressional district, including the City of Selma, Dallas County Water Authority, and Lowndes County Board of Education. Sewell made educational finance a particular focus of her practice, representing the historically black colleges in Alabama, including Alabama State University, Tuskegee University, and Stillman College, as well as other higher education institutions such as Wallace State-Hanceville, Jefferson State Community College, Chattahoochee Valley Community College, and the State of Alabama’s Public Schools and University Authority.

U.S. House of Representatives

Elections

2010

After four-term Democratic incumbent Artur Davis gave up the seat to run for governor, Sewell entered the Democratic primary—the real contest in this majority Democratic, majority-black district. She finished first in the four-way primary with 36.8 percent of the vote.^[10] In the runoff, she defeated Jefferson County commissioner Sheila Smoot with 55 percent of the vote.^[11][12]

In the general election, Sewell defeated Republican opponent Don Chamberlain in a landslide, taking 72.4 percent of the vote to become the first black woman elected to Congress from Alabama. The 7th is so strongly Democratic that Sewell essentially clinched her seat by winning the primary.^[13]

2012

Sewell was the only candidate to file for the Democratic nomination in 2012, and won the general election over Chamberlain as in 2010.^[14][15]

2014

Sewell was challenged in the Democratic primary by Tamara Harris Johnson, a former Birmingham City Attorney. No Republican even filed, so for all intents and purposes the Democratic primary was the general election. Sewell defeated Johnson with 83.9% of the primary vote, effectively clinching a third term.

Tenure

Since being elected, Sewell has voted with her party 91% of the time, and she has been noted as a strong supporter of President Obama's policies.^[16][17] Sewell has established herself as a liberal with a focus on job creation.^[18] Sewell is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Taxation

Sewell supported President Obama's plan to extend tax cuts for low- and middle-income Americans, but declined to discuss her stance on taxation for high-income Americans.^[16] In response to Obama's Framework for Business Tax Reform, Sewell said: "I applaud the President for outlining a bold framework for reforming the U.S. business tax system."^[19]

In 2012 Sewell criticized Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney's tax returns and effective tax rates, saying "it should be about shared responsibility. I think that something is fundamentally wrong if a person of his great wealth is only paying 13.9 percent effective tax rate and most of Americans are paying 28, 30 percent and they make far less.”^[20]

Foreign policy

Sewell supported Obama's decisions regarding Afghanistan, citing "trust" for his policies.^[16] She was part of a bi-partisan delegation to accompany Nancy Pelosi on a 2-day trip to Afghanistan in May 2012. While there, they spent time "with American service-members and meeting local officials to discuss security and women’s issues."^[21]

Legislation

Sewell has sponsored five bills:^[22]

112th Congress (2011-2012)

• H.R. 1730, a bill to create small business start-up savings accounts, with annual contributions up to $10,000, to pay for trade and business expenses, and to be taxed similarly to individual retirement accounts, introduced May 4, 2011, reintroduced in the 113th Congress as H.R. 1323.

113th Congress (2013-2014)

• H.R. 360, a bill to award posthumously Congressional Gold Medals to the victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, introduced January 23, 2013, signed into law May 24, 2013.
• H.R. 1324, a bill to allow for a business-related tax credit equal to 50% of wages (up to $2,000) paid to an apprenticeship employee during an apprenticeship period and 40% of wages (up to $6,000) paid to such an employee during a post-apprenticeship period, introduced March 21, 2013.
• H.R. 2254, a bill to establish a National Heritage Area for the Black Belt region of Alabama, introduced June 4, 2013.

Committee assignments

• Committee on Agriculture
  • Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management
  • Subcommittee on Rural Development, Research, Biotechnology, and Foreign Agriculture
• Committee on Science, Space and Technology
  • Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics
  • Subcommittee on Research and Science Education

Personal life

Terri Sewell served as co-chair of the Women’s Fund “Voices Against Violence” inaugural campaign, which promoted women helping women to overcome domestic violence. The campaign raised more than $70,000 in four months to fight domestic violence in Birmingham, providing funds to establish the first Domestic Violence Court in Birmingham Municipal Court.^[23] Sewell led the effort to have Teach for America select Alabama’s Black Belt region as a new site in 2010.

Sewell has served on numerous boards, including St. Vincent’s Foundation (elected Treasurer of the Board and Chair of its Finance Committee); Girl Scouts of Cahaba Council; the Alabama Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society; the Community Advisory Board for the UAB Minority Health and Research Center; the Governing Board of the Alabama Council on Economic Education; and she is a member of the Corporate Partners Council for Birmingham Art Museum.

Sewell was listed in the magazine Alabama Super Lawyers^[7] for 2008 and 2009. She was honored with the 2007 Minority Business “Rising Star” award by the Birmingham Business Journal (BBJ).^[23] She was selected by the BBJ as one of the “Top Birmingham Women” in 2005. She was a member of the class of 2006-2007 Leadership Birmingham, and a member of the YWCA’s Women Leadership MOMENTUM class of 2007-2008. She is a member of the class of 2008-2009 Leadership Alabama. In 2015, Sewell was named a Woman of Influence in Alabama Today's "Women of Influence" ^[24] series.

Sewell is a lifetime member of Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma. She currently worships at Sixth Avenue Baptist Church in Birmingham. She was selected to participate on the panel, "From Lincoln to Obama," for the Congressional Black Caucus' Annual Legislative Forum to discuss Southern politics.

She is an active member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority and The Links, Incorporated.

She was married in 1998 to Theodore Dixie of Huntsville, Alabama. They were later divorced.^[25]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Terri Sewell.

• Congresswoman Terri Sewell official U.S. House site
• Terri Sewell for Congress
• Terri Sewell at DMOZ
• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Profile at Project Vote Smart
• Financial information (federal office) at the Federal Election Commission
• Legislation sponsored at The Library of Congress