page_title: Debbie Stabenow
section_title: Tenure
hierarchical_section_title: Debbie Stabenow / U.S. Senate / Tenure
caption_attribution_description: Official portrait of United States Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI).
context_page_description: Deborah Ann Greer Stabenow is an American politician serving as the senior United States Senator from Michigan, a seat she was first elected to in 2000. A member of the Democratic Party, she became the state's first female U.S. Senator after defeating Republican incumbent Spencer Abraham. Before her election to the Senate, she was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Michigan's 8th congressional district. Previously she served on the Ingham County Board of Commissioners and in the Michigan State Legislature.
  Stabenow served as Chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee from 2011 to 2015. She was reelected to the Senate for a fourth term in 2018. She became the state's senior U.S. Senator upon the retirement of Carl Levin on January 3, 2015. She became Chair of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee in 2017.
context_section_description: Before her current committee assignments, Stabenow also served on the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee and the Special Committee on Aging.
  Stabenow is only the second person from Michigan to have served in both houses of the Michigan State Legislature and in both houses of the United States Congress. Stabenow is also the first person to have served as a Michigan state legislator to be popularly elected to the U.S. Senate (until enactment of the Seventeenth amendment to the United States Constitution in 1913, U.S. Senators were selected by the state legislature).
  Stabenow became the third-ranking Democratic Party member in the U.S. Senate on November 16, 2004, when she was elected as secretary of the Democratic caucus. As caucus secretary, she assisted Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to set the Democratic agenda and priorities. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) was elected Minority Whip, the second-ranking Democratic spot. In November 2006, Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that Stabenow would leave the caucus secretary position to succeed Hillary Clinton as chair of the Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee, charged with "engag[ing] Democratic Senators and community leaders across the country in an active dialogue".
  After Tom Daschle, President Barack Obama's nominee for United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, withdrew his name, the National Organization for Women urged the president to appoint Stabenow, citing her focus on health care and "her background as a social worker".
  Stabenow became the Chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee in 2011, following the defeat of Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln.  A controversial item during Stabenow's tenure, has been the renewal and reform of the 2012 U.S. Farm Bill. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) reintroduced 2012's Senate Farm Bill in the new 113th Congress in January 2013, saying that the Farm Bill was on his top priority list, and Stabenow voiced support for Reid's move, stating "Majority Leader Reid has demonstrated that the Senate will once again make supporting our nation’s agriculture economy while cutting spending a top priority."
  On October 29, 2014, Stabenow introduced the Gun Lake Trust Land Reaffirmation Act (S. 1603; 113th Congress), a bill that would reaffirm the status of lands taken into trust by the Department of the Interior (DOI) for the benefit of the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band. The bill would clarify that the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band's land trust could not be challenged in court under the Supreme Court decision of Carcieri v. Salazar.
caption: Stabenow during the 112th Congress
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