It is our honor to highlight Barbara Lee as our Individual Stand Out. Barbara Lee is the daughter of a retired lieutenant colonel in the US Army. She was the only member of Congress on September 14th to vote against the bill to give Bush the green to go to war as he saw fit.

420 House representatives and 98 senators voted YES and only one brave woman -- while denouncing the terrorist act and demanding justice for its victims -- refused to run with the herd as they headed off to war.

Earth Shaper: Barbara Lee

Congresswoman Barbara Lee was first elected to the US House of Representatives on April 7, 1998 to fill the remaining term of retiring Congressman Ron Dellums of California's Ninth District, which includes Oakland, Berkeley, Piedmont, Emeryville, Albany, and Alameda, and re-elected in November 1998 to serve in the 106th Congress. Prior to her service in the United States Congress, Congresswoman Lee had been elected to three consecutive terms in the California State Assembly (1990-1996) and one term in the California State Senate (1996-1998).

Representative Lee serves on the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services and the House Committee on International Relations. She is also a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus, and the Congressional Women's Caucus. Like her predecessor, Congressman Ron Dellums, Rep. Lee has worked diligently to strengthen economic development in the Bay Area by supporting the redevelopment of military bases. The Congresswoman has also worked to reduce class size and increase the amount of money directed to educational programs and initiatives, including helping to raise millions in federal and local funds for math and science education at the Chabot Observatory and Science Center in Oakland and for technology education and training in the district.

Congresswoman Lee has also taken a leadership role in fighting for affordable housing. She recently helped to secured a $34 million Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Hope VI Revitalization Grant for the Housing Authority of the City of Oakland, which will be used to revitalize the Coliseum Gardens public housing development.

At the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF) Western Regional Summit on Housing and Wealth Accumulation, in Oakland, Fannie Mae contributed $500,000 to the Community Bank of the Bay that will be used to establish a line of credit. The West Oakland, community-based, Northern California Land Trust (NCLT) will use this line of credit, with assistance from Fannie Mae, private lenders, and HUD, to identify, acquire, restore, and resell properties at a very low cost to low-income residents under the guidance of a Board of Directors.

In 1998, Congresswoman Lee led a community wide response to Alameda County's African American AIDS crisis. This effort led to the declaration of a State of Emergency on HIV/AIDS in Alameda County, which resulted in an increase of over $5 million in local HIV/AIDS care and services funding.

Ms. Lee's recent work with colleagues to develop a bi-partisan strategy to address the global AIDS crisis culminated when President Clinton signed H.R. 3519, the Global AIDS and Tuberculosis Relief Act of 2000, allocating over $1 billion to combat HIV/AIDS in Africa. The bill creates the World Bank AIDS Trust Fund, also known as the AIDS Marshall Plan for Africa. By providing grant funding, not loans, this public and private partnership will authorize $300 million over two years to address the AIDS pandemic. The bill also allocates hundreds of millions of dollars to the President's global AIDS initiatives, and other international HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis initiatives.

Earlier this year, Rep. Lee also successfully offered an amendment to the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill that increased the President's funding request for international HIV/AIDS by $42 million for FY01. The amendment increased the account for Agency for International Development Child Survival and Disease Programs Fund. The additional funds will be directed to the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS.

Lee is also a leader in the effort to increase humanitarian support for the Cuban people and overturn the embargo against Cuba. Likewise, Lee was one of only five U.S. Representatives to vote against a resolution supporting the December 1998 bombing of Iraq and the only Member of Congress to vote against a March 24, 1999 resolution regarding the commitment of troops to Kosovo, votes which have been deemed "courageous" by her constituents and by peace activists nationwide.

In more than seven years as a California legislator working with a Republican governor, Ms. Lee sponsored 67 bills and resolutions which were passed by the legislature and signed into law by Governor Wilson. Lee's legislative achievements have addressed a broad spectrum of community concerns including public safety, education, women's issues, environmental protections, labor, and health, and authored legislation to provide health care for California's uninsured children.

Lee also helped to develop closer economic, political, and cultural ties between the State of California and Africa by leading several legislative delegations to the Continent and by helping to spur the initiation of a California Trade and Investment Office in South Africa. While in the California State Senate, Ms. Lee served as Chair of the Senate Committee on Housing and Land Use; other Senate standing committee assignments included Appropriations; Business and Professions; Industrial Relations; Judiciary; and Revenue and Taxation, in addition to the Conference Committee on Welfare Reform, the Conference Committee on Health Access, and numerous subcommittees and select committees.

Prior to her election to the California Legislature, Ms. Lee worked as Senior Adviser and Chief of Staff to Congressman Ron Dellums in Washington, DC and Oakland, CA for 11 years. Barbara Lee has served as a board member of the California State World Trade Commission, the California State Coastal Conservancy and the District Export Council, and as a member of the California Defense Conversion Council. Equally noteworthy, Ms. Lee has presided over the California Commission on the Status of African-American Males, the California Legislative Black Caucus, and the National Conference on State Legislatures Women's Network, and served as a member of the California Commission on the Status of Women.

Congresswoman Lee was born in El Paso Texas; her family moved to San Fernando, California in 1960. Upon her graduation from San Fernando High School, Lee received the Rotary Club Music Award and the Bank of America Achievement Award in the field of music. Lee moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1967; in 1973, she received a Bachelor's degree from Mills College, worked as a Cal in the Capital intern for Congressman Ron Dellums in 1974, and, two years later, she received a Master's degree in Social Welfare from the University of California, Berkeley. While working towards her graduate degree, Lee founded a community mental health center in Berkeley, California. Representative Lee is a resident of Oakland, California.