Harris, Katherine, 1957-

Katherine Harris (born April 5, 1957) is an American business executive and politician. A member of the Republican Party, she was elected in 1998 to be Secretary of State of Florida and in 2002 to the United States House of Representatives from Florida's 13th congressional district.

Born in Key West, Florida, she attended Bartow High School and graduated in 1979 from Agnes Scott College with a BA in history; she later earned an MPA from Harvard in 1996. After graduating from college, Harris worked as a marketing executive for a major computer corporation and then served as vice president of a Sarasota commercial real estate company. In 1996 she married Anders Ebbeson, a business executive. Harris decided to enter politics in 1994 when she made a successful run for the Florida state senate. During her four years as a state legislator, she chaired the commerce and economic development committee. In 1998 Harris successfully ran for the Florida secretary of state post. In 2000 she was named the Florida co-chair for the George W. Bush presidential campaign. Harris garnered national attention as Florida’s top election official during the state’s historic ballot recount that eventually decided the election in George W. Bush’s favor by a slender margin. In 2002 she published a book about the experience, Center of the Storm.

In 2002, Harris ran against Sarasota Attorney Jan Schneider for the congressional district vacated by retiring Republican Rep. Dan Miller, winning by 10 percentage points in this solidly Republican district, a victory helped with one of the biggest first term campaign fund raising efforts in the history of this district and substantial support from the Bush family. Harris carved out reliably conservative positions on most issues during her time in the House. She was anti-abortion and voted against embryonic stem cell research. Harris supported reforming Social Security to include private accounts. Harris also favored welfare reform, school vouchers, the Patriot Act, the Flag Desecration Amendment, the Federal Marriage Amendment, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In 2006, she won the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat Bill Nelson; Nelson defeated Harris by more than 20 points in the general election.

Harris has not been very active in public life since retiring from politics. In 2013, her husband shot and killed himself in the Sarasota home they shared; he had reportedly been suffering a serious illness. Three years later, she attended a reunion of former Florida legislators in Tallahassee, and in 2017, after admitting she'd become "a near recluse" since Ebbeson's death, she married Texas banker Richard Ware.