Esty, Elizabeth, 1959-

Elizabeth Esty (née Henderson; born August 25, 1959) is an American lawyer, academic, and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, she served as a U.S. Representative from Connecticut's 5th congressional district from 2013 to 2019.

Born in Oak Park, Illinois, she was raised in Minnesota and graduated from Winona Senior High School. She earned an B.A. from Harvard College in 1981 and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1985. She also studied International Relations at L'Institut d'études politiques in Paris for a year on a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship. She married Daniel Esty, a fellow law school student, in October 1984. The Estys settled in Washington, DC. She joined a private law firm and worked on cases defending abortion rights. In 1990 she left the practice to concentrate on health care policy and taught as an adjunct at American University. In 1994, when her husband founded an environmental law and policy program at Yale University, the Estys relocated to Connecticut where Elizabeth became a senior research scholar at Yale Law School. In 2004, she won election to the Cheshire town council in 2004, and served until she won a seat in the state assembly four years later. In the state house, Esty supported worker rights and same-sex marriage, and voted to abolish capital punishment. Esty lost her bid for reelection to the state house in 2010. When Representative Christopher Murphy announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate in 2012, Esty joined the race to fill his seat, narrowly winning against a Republican who supported abortion rights and same-sex marriage, in the general election.

Esty served in the House minority for her whole career and described her legislative approach as both practical and bipartisan. She was ranked as the 62nd most bipartisan member of the U.S. House of Representatives during the 114th United States Congress (and the most bipartisan member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Connecticut). After the attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School- located in Esty's district- shortly after her election, Esty became a leading gun control advocate on Capitol Hill. In late summer 2016 House Democrats held a sit-in on the House Floor to protest the lack of debate on gun control, one which Esty participated in. In partnership with Republican Representative Barbara Comstock of Virginia, Esty introduced the Promoting Women in Entrepreneurship Act and the INSPIRE Women Act, a pair of bills designed to improve federal support for women in science, technology, math, and engineering fields.

In early 2018, Esty faced public criticism after news reports revealed that her former chief of staff had been accused of sexual harassment and threats of violence against staff but that she kept him on the payroll for another three months and wrote him a positive letter of reference. After initially insisting she would continue to serve, Esty announced that she would not seek reelection. She cited her failure to protect women on her staff from sexual harassment and threats of violence from her former chief of staff. Jahana Hayes succeeded Esty in Congress.