Van Duyne, Beth, 1970-

<p>Elizabeth Ann Van Duyne (/ˌvænˈdaɪn/ van-DYNE; born November 16, 1970) is an American politician serving as the U.S. Representative for Texas's 24th congressional district. A member of the Republican Party, she served as mayor of Irving from 2011 to 2017. She was also an official in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in the Trump administration. She is one of 147 Republican lawmakers who voted to overturn results in the 2020 presidential election.</p>

<p>Van Duyne was born in upstate New York and lived in Amsterdam, New York, until she was seven years old and later lived in Cooperstown. In 1986, her family moved to Irving, Texas. She graduated from Greenhill School in Addison, Texas. She also graduated from Cornell University, magna cum laude, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in city and regional planning, government, and law.</p>

<p>Van Duyne became dissatisfied with Herbert Gears, the Democratic Irving city councillor representing her, over how he handled a zoning case in her neighborhood. She ran against Gears in the 2004 election, and won. Gears was elected mayor in 2005. Van Duyne stepped down from the council in 2010, and successfully ran for mayor against Gears in the 2011 election. She defeated Gears in a rematch in 2014.</p>

<p>Congresswoman Beth Van Duyne proudly represents the 24th Congressional District of Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives, which includes portions of Tarrant, Denton, and Dallas counties. Prior to being elected to Congress, Beth served as Regional Administrator for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Mayor of Irving, Irving City Council Member, and a businesswoman.</p>

<p>In 2017, Beth was appointed to serve as the Regional Administrator for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Southwest Region. Working under Secretary Ben Carson, Beth was tasked with overseeing HUD programs and operations in the Region’s five states of Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, where she worked on many of the Trump Administration’s proudest economic successes, such as opportunity zones, and led HUD’s disaster recovery efforts at the southwest border in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.</p>

<p>Before being named Administrator, Beth was the first woman elected to serve as the Mayor of Irving from 2011 to 2017 after beginning her career in public service as an Irving City Council Representative from 2004 to 2010. Under her leadership, the City of Irving witnessed unprecedented economic growth and development with an added 40,000 jobs and an estimated $3 billion in growth and new developments while also being named the fifth safest city in America.</p>

VAN DUYNE, Beth, a Representative from Texas; born in New York, November 16, 1970; graduated from the Greenhill School, Addison, Tex., 1988; B.A., Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 1995; consultant; business executive; member of the Irving, Tex. city council, 2004–2010; Mayor of Irving, Tex., 2011–2017; Regional Administrator, US Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2017–2019; elected as a Republican to the One Hundred Seventeenth Congress (January 3, 2021–present).