Morella, Constance A. (Constance Albanese), 1931-

Constance Morella (/məˈrɛlə/; née Albanese; born February 12, 1931) is an American politician and diplomat. She represented Maryland's 8th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1987 to 2003.

Born Constance Albanese in Somerville, Massachusetts, she attended school there, graduating from Somerville High School in 1948, she attended Boston University, where she earned an Associate of Arts in 1950 and a Bachelor of Arts in 1954. After marrying Anthony Morella, she became a Republican and moved to Bethesda, Maryland. Morella became a secondary school teacher in the Montgomery County, Maryland public schools from 1957 to 1961. She graduated from American University with an M.A. in 1967 and was an instructor there from 1968 to 1970, when she became a professor at Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland. She continued to teach until 1985.

In 1971 Morella was appointed as a founding member to the Montgomery County Commission for Women, an advisory women's advocacy body, and she was elected its president in 1973. She became active in the League of Women Voters. In 1974, she ran for the Maryland House of Delegates from the 16th District (Bethesda), but did not win. She ran again in 1978, winning the seat and receiving more votes than the three previous incumbents. She was reelected for an additional term, before successfully running for the United States Congress in 1986.

Morella built her House career by emphasizing those issues of greatest concern to her constituents, developing an active district presence. Morella opposed her party's positions on abortion, gun control, gay rights, and the environmental movement, voted for government funding of contraceptives and needle exchange programs for drug addicts, and favored the legalization of medical marijuana. She received some support from organized labor and opposed many tax cuts. Morella, however, voted against President Clinton's 1993 budget, as all other Congressional Republicans did. She voted against declaring English the official language of the United States and, in 1996, against a bill overwhelmingly approved by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton to combat illegal immigration. After losing much of her Republican base duie to redistricting, Morella lost re-election in 2002.

In July 2003, President Bush nominated Morella to be U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. She served in this position until 2007. She was appointed to the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) by President Barack Obama in 2010.