Giffords, Gabrielle D. (Gabrielle Dee), 1970-

<p>Gabrielle Dee Giffords (born June 8, 1970) is an American politician and gun control advocate who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives representing Arizona's 8th congressional district from January 2007 until January 2012, when she resigned due to a severe brain injury suffered during an assassination attempt. A member of the Democratic Party, Giffords was the third woman in Arizona's history to be elected to the U.S. Congress.</p>

<p>Born and raised in Tucson, Arizona, Giffords graduated from Scripps College and Cornell University. After initially moving to New York City, where she worked in regional economic development for Price Waterhouse, Giffords returned to Arizona to work as the CEO of El Campo Tire Warehouses, a family business started by her grandfather. She served in the Arizona House of Representatives from 2001 until 2003 and the Arizona Senate from 2003 until 2005 when she was elected to the U.S. House. Giffords had just begun her third term in January 2011 when she was shot in the head in an assassination attempt and mass shooting just outside of Tucson during an event with constituents. Giffords has since recovered much of her ability to walk, speak, read, and write. She was greeted by a standing ovation upon her return to the House floor in August 2011. She attended President Obama's State of the Union address on January 24, and appeared on the floor of the House on January 25, 2012, where she formally submitted her resignation to a standing ovation and accolades from her colleagues and the leadership of the House.</p>

<p>Though a moderate on the issue during her time in Congress, Giffords has since become an ardent advocate for gun control. In January 2013, she and her husband launched Americans for Responsible Solutions, a non-profit organization and Super-PAC which later joined with the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence to become Giffords. She is married to former Space Shuttle Commander Mark Kelly, the junior United States Senator from Arizona.</p>

<p>Gabrielle Giffords, a rising star in the House Democratic Caucus, had her career tragically and prematurely cut short when she was nearly killed during an attempted assassination at a constituent event in Arizona. An advocate for border security, alternative energy development, and improved veterans’ benefits, Giffords took pride in her centrist record first in the Arizona legislature and then in Congress. “Always I fought for what I thought was right,” she once said. “But never did I question the character of those with whom I disagreed. Never did I let pass an opportunity to join hands with someone just because he or she held different beliefs. In public service, I found a venue for my pursuit of a stronger America—by ensuring the safety and security of all Americans, by producing clean energy here at home instead of importing oil from abroad, and by honoring our brave men and women in uniform with the benefits they earned.”</p>

<p>A third-generation Arizonan, Gabrielle Dee (Gabby) Giffords was born on June 8, 1970, in Tucson, Arizona, the youngest child of Spencer and Gloria Giffords. Giffords has an older sister, Melissa, and an older half-brother, Alejandro. She graduated from Tucson’s University High School in 1988 and attended Scripps College in Claremont, California, where she graduated with a double major in Latin American studies and sociology in 1993. After studying for a year in Chihuahua, Mexico, on a J. William Fulbright Scholarship, Giffords earned a master’s degree in urban planning from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, in 1996. She then worked for six months at a New York consultancy before returning to Tucson to run her family’s tire business, which her grandfather founded in 1949. While leading the business for four years, Giffords focused on customer service. “I never thought I’d like [the job] as much as I do,” she said at the time. “I didn’t know what to expect. My vision [for the company] is providing service I haven’t seen provided before.” Economic pressure forced Giffords to consolidate the tire business into a commercial property management firm in 2000, which she helped manage until 2007. In November 2007, Giffords married Mark Kelly, a Navy pilot and astronaut, whom she met during a 2003 trip to China.</p>

<p>Giffords, who first sought elected office in 2000, said she entered politics after frustrations at her tire business. She said job applicants lacked the skills to fill out forms properly, and she had difficulty finding help for an employee with a mental illness. “Why wring your hands when you can fix the tractor?” Giffords asked. Giffords spent a single term in the Arizona state house and then won election to the state senate in 2002 with more than 74 percent of the vote—becoming the youngest woman ever elected to that chamber. She won re-election in 2004. In the state senate, the centrist Democratic Leadership Council named Giffords one of the “100 New Democrats to Watch” in 2003, and in 2005 the Aspen Institute made her part of its inaugural class of Aspen-Rodel fellows, a leadership program for elected officials under the age of 50.</p>