Marjorie Margolies /ˈmɑrdʒəri mɑrˈɡoʊliːz/, formerly known as Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky
, is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania and a women's rights activist.
She is a former journalist and a Democratic politician.
From 1993 to 1995 she was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, representing
Pennsylvania.
Early life, education, and journalism career Margolies was born in Philadelphia.
She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1963.
She was a broadcast journalist for over twenty-four years, winning five Emmy Awards for her work.
She worked as a television journalist at WCAU-TV from 1967 to 1969, was a CBS News Foundation
Fellow, Columbia University from 1969 to 1970, and then worked for WRC-TV from 1975 until
1990.
She was also a correspondent for the Today Show.
U.S. House of Representatives Elections
In 1992 she ran for an open seat in Congress for Pennsylvania's 13th congressional district,
a largely suburban district outside Philadelphia which Republicans had held since 1916.
She defeated Bernard Tomkin in the Democratic primary, 79%-21%.
In the general election, she defeated Republican State Representative Jon D. Fox by a margin
of 0.5%, or a difference of 1,373 votes.
In 1994, she lost re-election to Fox in a rematch, 49%-45%, a difference of 8,181 votes.
She was one of 34 Democratic incumbents who were defeated in the Republican Revolution.
Tenure She was on the bipartisan Deficit Reduction
Task Force.
In 1994, she completed A Woman's Place, a book with the other women in the class of
1992.
Many of her votes cost her re-election bid in 1994.
One vote was for President Bill Clinton's controversial 1993 budget, for which she was
the deciding vote.
She had opposed the bill, until the President called her.
House Democrats cheered as the House Republicans jeered, "Goodbye Marjorie!"
In a 2009 interview with The Daily Beast, she recalled U.S. Congressman Robert Walker
in particular joining in the Republican jeers.
She also recalled the ire of her constituents resulting from her vote, saying "when I went
to town-hall meetings, I had to be escorted by the police....I was just surprised at the
level of divisiveness and immaturity."
After a health care reform bill passed the House in November 2009, the conservative Americans
for Tax Reform featured her 1994 defeat as an example of what could occur in the 2010
midterm elections because of one particular vote to those Democrats in swing districts
who voted in favor of that health care reform bill.
Margolies, however, wrote in the Washington Post that she was glad that she had cast her
vote as she had, and urged vulnerable Democrats in Congress to vote for the healthcare bill
in March 2010.
Committee assignments Political activism
After her term in Congress, she was the Chair of the National Women’s Business Council,
and the Director and Deputy Chair of the United States delegation to the United Nations Fourth
World Conference on Women in 1995.
She currently serves as the founder and chair of Women’s Campaign International, a group
that provides advocacy training for women throughout the world.
She is also an adjunct professor at the Fels Institute of Government at the University
of Pennsylvania.
Political campaigns 1998 gubernatorial election
In 1998, she ran for Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania.
She won the Democratic primary election with 53% of the vote, defeating two other candidates.
She became the running mate for State Representative Ivan Itkin.
The ticket lost to Republicans Tom Ridge and Mark Schweiker, 57%-31%.
2000 congressional election and bankruptcy
In 2000, she decided to run, but ultimately withdrew from the Democratic Senate primary
with five other candidates, for the seat of Rick Santorum, after disappointing fundraising,
mother's illness, and legal trouble of her husband, Edward Mezvinsky, which ended in
a conviction for fraud.
Shortly thereafter, she filed for bankruptcy, but failed to receive a discharge from her
debts, based on 11 U.S.C. §727(a)(5).
The court found Mezvinsky had failed to satisfactorily explain a significant loss of assets in the
four years prior to her bankruptcy filing.
The bankruptcy judge stated, in her published opinion, "I find that the Debtor has failed
to satisfactorily explain the loss of approximately $775,000 worth of assets."
Sonders v. Mezvinsky, 265 B.R. 681, 694.
2014 congressional election
Margolies filed the necessary paperwork on May 31, 2013 to run in the Democratic Party
primary for a return to Congress from her old district in the 2014 elections.
She ran to replace Rep. Allyson Schwartz, who is running for Governor of Pennsylvania
in 2014.
The other Democrats in the race were state Rep. Brendan Boyle of Northeast Philadelphia;
state Senator Daylin Leach of Montgomery County; and Dr. Valerie Arkoosh, a professor at the
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
State Rep. Mark B. Cohen of Philadelphia and former City Controller Jonathan Saidel filed
to run, but later withdrew.
On May 17, 2014 Hillary Clinton held her first fundraiser of the year for Margolies' congressional
campaign.
On May 20, 2014 Margolies lost the primary to Boyle.
Personal life She was married to former U.S. Congressman
Edward Mezvinsky, of Iowa, in 1975; they divorced in 2007.
During their marriage, she was known as Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky.
They raised eleven children together: four from his first marriage, two she had adopted
on her own, two sons they had together, and three adopted children.
In 1970, Margolies adopted a daughter from Korea, reportedly the first time a single
American woman had adopted a foreign child.
Their son, Marc Mezvinsky, married Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of former U.S. President
Bill Clinton and former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, on July 31,
2010, in Rhinebeck, New York.
He was a Goldman Sachs investment banker, and now is an investment banker at 3G Capital
Management.
Works They Came to Stay, Coward, McCann & Geoghegan,
1976 Finding someone to love, Playboy Press Paperbacks,
1980, ISBN 978-0-87216-650-9 The Girls in the Newsroom, Charter Communications,
Inc., 1983, ISBN 978-0-441-28929-5 A woman's place: the freshman women who changed
the face of Congress, Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, Barbara Feinman, Crown Publishers, 1994, ISBN
978-0-517-59713-2 References
External links Biography at the Biographical Directory of
the United States Congress Profile at Project Vote Smart
Financial information at the Federal Election Commission
"Women Who Lead: Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky".
University Chic. April 10, 2007.
Retrieved 2010-08-26.