page_title: Kirsten Gillibrand
section_title: Appointment
hierarchical_section_title: Kirsten Gillibrand / U.S. Senate / Appointment
caption_attribution_description: English: New York junior Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D) on a campaign stop with Congressional candidate Scott Murphy (D) at a diner in Brunswick, New York during the 2009 special election for the 20th congressional district of New York. New York Governor David Paterson replaced former Senator Hillary Clinton with Senator Gillibrand (the former Congresswoman from New York's 20th congressional district) upon her accession of the office of United States Secretary of State in the Obama administration. Murphy won that election and represented New York's 20th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives until he was beat by challenger Chris Gibson in 2010.
context_page_description: Kirsten Elizabeth Gillibrand is an American lawyer and politician and a member of the Democratic Party. She has served as the junior United States Senator from New York since 2009, and was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2007 to 2009.
  Born and raised in upstate New York, Gillibrand graduated from Dartmouth College and from the UCLA School of Law. After holding positions in government and private practice and working on Hillary Clinton's 2000 U.S. Senate campaign, Gillibrand was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 2006. She represented New York's 20th congressional district, a conservative district in upstate New York, and was re-elected in 2008. During her House tenure, Gillibrand was a Blue Dog Democrat noted for voting against the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.
  Following Senator Clinton's appointment as U.S. Secretary of State in 2009, Governor David Paterson selected Gillibrand to fill the Senate seat that had been vacated by Clinton, becoming New York's second female Senator. Gillibrand won a special election in 2010 to keep the seat, and was re-elected to full terms in 2012 and 2018.
context_section_description: On December 1, 2008, President-elect Barack Obama announced his choice of Hillary Clinton, the junior U.S. Senator from New York, as Secretary of State. Clinton was confirmed by a vote of 94-2 on January 21, 2009. Just hours before being sworn in as Secretary of State, Clinton resigned her senate seat, effective immediately. Obama's December announcement began a two-month search process to fill her vacant Senate seat. Under New York law, the governor appoints a replacement. A special election would then be held in November 2010 for the remainder of the full term, which ended in January 2013.
  Governor David Paterson's selection process began with a number of prominent names and high-profile New York Democrats, including Andrew Cuomo, Fran Drescher and Caroline Kennedy, vying for the spot. Gillibrand quietly campaigned for the position, meeting secretly with Paterson on at least one occasion. She said that she made an effort to underscore her successful House elections in a largely conservative district, adding that she could be a good complement to Chuck Schumer. Gillibrand was presumed a likely choice in the days before the official announcement. On January 23, 2009, Paterson held a press conference to announce Gillibrand as his choice.
  The response within New York to the appointment was mixed. The upstate New York media was generally optimistic about the appointment of an upstate Senator, as one had not been elected since Charles Goodell left office in 1971. Many downstaters were disappointed with the selection, with some media outlets stating that Paterson had ignored the electoral influence of populous New York City and downstate on state politics. One questioned whether Paterson's administration was aware of "[where] statewide elections are won and lost". Gillibrand was relatively unknown statewide, and many voters found the choice surprising. One source stated, "With every Democrat in New York ... angling for the appointment, there was a sense of bafflement, belittlement, and bruised egos when Paterson tapped the junior legislator unknown outside of Albany."
  Shortly before her appointment to the U.S. Senate was announced, Gillibrand reportedly contacted the Empire State Pride Agenda (an LGBT lobbying organization in New York) to express her full support for same-sex marriage, the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, the repeal of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy regarding gay and lesbian servicemembers, and the passage of legislation banning discrimination against transgender persons. Gillibrand had supported civil unions for same-sex couples and argued that the same-sex marriage issue should be left to states. Paterson's office had advised her to reach out to Empire State Pride.
  Gillibrand was sworn in on January 26, 2009; at 42, she entered the chamber as the youngest senator in the 111th Congress. In February she endorsed Scott Murphy, who had been chosen by the New York Democrats as their nominee for her now vacant seat in the House of Representatives. In April, Murphy won the seat against Republican Jim Tedisco by 399 votes and succeeded Gillibrand in the House until 2011.
caption: Gillibrand campaigning for her Democratic House successor Scott Murphy (2009)
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