Hart, Melissa, 1962-

<p>Melissa Anne Hart (born April 4, 1962) is an American lawyer and politician. She was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from 2001 to 2007, representing western Pennsylvania's 4th congressional district. She was the first Republican woman to represent Pennsylvania at the federal level.</p>

<p>Prior to her service in Congress, Hart served in the Pennsylvania Senate, where she chaired the finance committee. She was the first Republican woman elected to serve a full term in the Pennsylvania Senate in 1990 when she was 28 years old. In her first run for office, Hart defeated an incumbent in a senate district that included parts of Allegheny, Westmoreland and Armstrong counties.</p>

<p>In the 2006 midterm elections, Hart lost her bid for re-election to Democrat Jason Altmire. She challenged Altmire again in the 2008 election, but was defeated again.</p>

<p>Hoping to lower taxes and improve government services, Melissa Hart entered elective politics at age 28, winning a seat in the Pennsylvania senate. After a decade in state politics, Hart was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000—the first Republican woman to represent Pennsylvania in Congress. For three terms, Hart worked to limit government regulations on business, restrict access to abortion, and revive the economic prospects of her southwestern Pennsylvania district.</p>

<p>Melissa Ann Hart was born on April 4, 1962, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Donald, a research chemist, and Albina Hart. After her father’s sudden death, Hart and her two siblings worked their way through school to help the family get by. Hart graduated from North Allegheny High School and then majored in business and German, earning her bachelor’s degree in 1984 from Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, Pennsylvania. She joined the College Republicans as an undergraduate and worked on a Republican state senate campaign. In 1987 she completed her law degree at the University of Pittsburgh and practiced law at a Pittsburgh firm. After Pittsburgh officials raised property taxes, Hart—concerned that “the money being taken from us wasn’t being spent in an effective way”—decided to run for public office. In 1990, at age 28, Hart became the youngest woman and the first Republican woman elected to the Pennsylvania state senate. Despite hailing from an overwhelmingly Democratic district, she was re-elected twice. During her tenure in the state legislature, she chaired the finance committee and focused on tax reform. Hart’s chief of staff during her Pennsylvania senate career, Philip Sheridan English, later served alongside her in the U.S. House of Representatives.</p>

<p>When four-term incumbent Democratic Representative Ronald Klink ran for the U.S. Senate in 2000, Hart entered the race to succeed him in the House. Pennsylvania’s Fourth District overlapped with her state senate district, encompassing parts of six counties spread across southwestern Pennsylvania. The district’s industrial past and history of union support usually kept it in Democratic hands. No Republican had represented the region since 1979, but Hart’s record in the state senate led to a competitive race. Republican House Majority Leader Richard Keith Armey of Texas considered Hart’s candidacy crucial to the party’s effort to retain its 11-seat majority in the House, calling it “the most important congressional race in the country.” Armey visited western Pennsylvania to fundraise for Hart, along with Representative Thomas Dale DeLay of Texas and Senator John Sidney McCain III of Arizona. Hart’s platform supported cutting taxes and economic development in western Pennsylvania, which had lost jobs amid a shift in the country’s economy away from the industrial backbone of the region. She also promised to fight gun control legislation, restrict abortion rights, and eliminate what she considered burdensome business regulations. She ran unopposed in the Republican primary and won the general election against her Democratic challenger, a state representative, with 60 percent of the vote. In her subsequent two re-election campaigns, Hart won by similarly comfortable margins.</p>