In November of 2018 the people of the 40th Senate District, including DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett county residents, elected me to represent them in the Georgia State Senate. Since then, it has been an honor and a pleasure to continue the advocacy I began in the Georgia House of Representatives for public education, access to affordable healthcare, voter’s rights, and the protection of our Earth.

I am currently a member of the Senate Ethics; Higher Education; and Natural Resources and the Environment; Special Judiciary; Urban Affairs; and State Institution and Properties Committees. Because my district includes three counties and ten cities, I also am a voting member of the Gwinnett, DeKalb and Fulton delegations, including the City of Atlanta delegation. I currently serve as Vice Chair of the DeKalb Delegation and as Co-Chair of the bi-partisan Georgia Legislative Women’s Caucus.

During my first term in the Georgia Senate, I chose to speak out on issues including voter’s rights; gun safety; Medicaid expansion, including access to a public option; human rights protections for immigrants; protection of women’s rights to reproductive healthcare; public transit funding; and the high cost of higher education.

Elected to three terms in the Georgia House of Representatives, from 1999 – 2005, I served on the House Education, Human Relations & Aging, Children & Youth, and Appropriations Committees. As a State Representative, I championed a wide range of women’s and children’s issues, advocating for mental health and disability services and mandatory recess for children. During this period, I also helped pass a landmark and progressive law protecting mothers who breastfeed in public, after breastfeeding my own newborns as I attended to my duties in the House chamber.

Prior to serving in the Georgia legislature, I was the Executive Director of the Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Georgia. I received my Master of Social Work from the University of Georgia and Bachelor of Social Work from Georgia State University.

I currently live in the Northlake/Tucker area with my husband, Jay, while my two children attend Georgia State University and the University of Oregon. When not attending to legislative and campaign duties, I’m an avid reader and stay fit by climbing 60-foot walls at our local rock climbing gym.