page_title: Terri Sewell
section_title: Tenure and political positions
hierarchical_section_title: Terri Sewell / U.S. House of Representatives / Tenure and political positions
caption_attribution_description: English: "Great Day for Alabama! Senator Doug Jones and I compare congressional pins! @GDouglasJones"
context_page_description: Terrycina Andrea "Terri" Sewell is an American lawyer and politician. She is a member of the Democratic Party. She has served as the U.S. Representative since 2011 for Alabama's 7th congressional district, which includes most of the Black Belt, as well as most of the predominantly Black portions of Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, and Montgomery.
  A native of Selma, Sewell is a graduate of Princeton University, Harvard Law School, and Oxford University. Before entering politics, she had been a securities lawyer for Davis Polk & Wardwell and a public finance lawyer for Maynard, Cooper & Gale, where she was the first Black woman to make partner. She is the first African-American woman to have been elected to Congress from Alabama and, along with Republican Martha Roby, was one of the first women elected to Congress from Alabama in a regular election.
context_section_description: Since being elected, Sewell has voted with her party 91% of the time. She was a strong supporter of President Obama's policies. She has a lifetime rating of 8% from Heritage Action for America for voting for pro-conservative laws. Despite this, for the 114th United States Congress, Sewell was ranked as the 94th most bipartisan member of the U.S. House of Representatives (and the most bipartisan member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Alabama) in the Bipartisan Index created by The Lugar Center and the McCourt School of Public Policy that ranks members of the United States Congress by their degree of bipartisanship (by measuring the frequency each member's bills attract co-sponsors from the opposite party and each member's co-sponsorship of bills by members of the opposite party). Sewell has established herself as a liberal with a focus on job creation. Sewell is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
  In January 2020, Sewell endorsed Joe Biden for president.
caption: Sewell and U.S. Senator Doug Jones in January 2018
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