Herseth Sandlin, Stephanie, 1970-

<p>Stephanie Marie Herseth Sandlin (born December 3, 1970) is an American attorney, university administrator, and politician from the Democratic Party. She served in the United States House of Representatives for South Dakota's at-large congressional district from 2004 until 2011. Sandlin was first elected to Congress in a special election on July 12, 2004 and was re-elected three times before losing her seat in Congress to Republican Kristi Noem in 2010. She was the youngest female member of the House, and the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from South Dakota. Before her 2007 marriage to Max Sandlin, she was known as Stephanie Herseth. She is a Democrat and a member of the prominent Herseth family of South Dakota, and president of Augustana University.</p>

<p>Stephanie Herseth was born on December 3, 1970, the daughter of Joyce (nee' Styles) and Ralph Lars Herseth, and was raised on her family's farm near Houghton. Her father's family had been active for two generations in South Dakota politics. Her paternal grandfather, Ralph Herseth, was the Governor of South Dakota, and her paternal grandmother, Lorna Herseth, was Secretary of State of South Dakota. Her father, Lars Herseth, served in the South Dakota State Legislature for two decades and ran for governor in 1986. Her ancestry includes German and Norwegian.</p>

<p>Herseth graduated from Groton High School in Groton, South Dakota. She earned her B.A. from Georgetown University in 1993; and her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 1997.</p>

<p>On June 1, 2004, Stephanie Herseth became the first woman from South Dakota to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives after she won a special election to f ill the state’s At-Large seat. A proponent of biofuel technology, Herseth worked to balance the agricultural needs of her rural state with the push for renewable energy. After her House career she told a local newspaper that she felt she “did an effective job seeing South Dakota got a fair shake. . . . I love South Dakota,” she said. “I was proud to serve.”</p>

<p>Stephanie Herseth was born on December 3, 1970, to Lars and Joyce Herseth and was raised on her family’s ranch near Houghton, South Dakota. Her grandfather, Ralph Herseth, was once the state’s governor; her grandmother, Lorna B. Herseth, was the secretary of state. Lars Herseth served in the South Dakota state legislature for 20 years and was a Democratic gubernatorial nominee. Herseth graduated as a valedictorian from Groton High School in Groton, South Dakota. In 1993 she earned a BA in government from Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Four years later she earned her JD from Georgetown with honors and was a senior editor of the Georgetown Law Review. While in law school, Herseth worked for the South Dakota public utilities commission and as legal counsel for the elderly. After being admitted to the South Dakota bar, Herseth served as a faculty member of the Georgetown University Law Center and taught government classes in the Czech Republic. She later clerked for a U.S. District Court judge in Pierre, South Dakota, and for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Maryland. In 2003 and 2004, she served as the executive director of the South Dakota Farmers Union Foundation.</p>

<p>In 2002 Representative John Thune gave up his seat as South Dakota’s sole U.S. Representative to run for the U.S. Senate, and Herseth entered the race to succeed him. She won the Democratic nomination, defeating three other challengers, with 59 percent of the vote. In the general election, she faced the state’s popular four-term Republican governor, William J. Janklow. Herseth campaigned on limited federal spending, affordable health care, the expansion of ethanol production and value-added agricultural policies, childcare tax credits, and federal aid to improve conditions on South Dakota’s American Indian reservations. Herseth supported President George W. Bush’s push for war against Iraq on the basis that Saddam Hussein had apparently developed weapons of mass destruction. But she cautioned early on about the need for a strong international coalition and warned that intervention in Iraq could sap resources from the nation’s focus on terrorist threats. Janklow won the November election with 54 percent of the vote; Herseth took 46 percent. When Janklow resigned his House seat on January 20, 2004, Herseth was an immediate favorite to run in the special election to fill the remainder of the term. She won the Democratic nomination and faced Republican Larry Diedrich in the special election. On June 1, 2004, Herseth won with 51 percent of the vote. In November 2004, in a rematch against Diedrich, Herseth won with 53 percent, taking more votes than any other candidate in South Dakota for national office. She enjoyed a sizable margin of victory in both her 2006 and 2008 re-elections.</p>