Iva Slate (Season I)

**Iva Marie Slate** (born 28th August, 1981), is a Fremontian politician, diplomat, lawyer, and advocate who has served as the United States Secretary of State under President Quinn Simaitis since November 2022 and Senator from Fremont from 2020 to 2022 and since 2032. Slate became the first African-American woman nominated for president of the United States by a major political party when she won the New Democratic Party nomination for president in 2040. In the eventual presidential election, she lost to Carlos Perez.

## Early Life and Education

Slate was born on 28th August, 1981, in Detroit, Fremont, formerly Michigan, the eldest daughter of Ishmael and Varine Slate (*née* Kennedy). She was raised in an Episcopalian Christian family in the McDougall-Hunt neighbourhood on the East Side of Detroit. Slate's parents separated when she was five years old, and Slate lived with her mother Varine in a one-bedroom house along with her younger siblings Eva and Ava.

As a child, Slate was a favourite student among her teachers at the public schools she attended in McDougall-Hunt. She participated on numerous sports teams before she moved to the more well-to-do neighbourhood of Grosse Pointe to live with her paternal grandmother Propiva, where she attended Defer Elementary School and Brownell Middle School. For her senior year, Slate transferred to Renaissance High School, where she was a member of the debate team and the student council. She eventually graduated in the top ten percent of her class in 1999.

After taking a gap year where she during which she volunteered to campaign for George Bush in the 2000 United States presidential election, Slate enrolled at the University of Michigan, where she majored in political science. She graduated *summa cum laude* in 2004. She then pursued professional study, earning her Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Harvard Law School in 2007. At Harvard, Slate met future Chief Justice and Concord Governor Shrey Rockefeller, with whom she engaged in a long-term romantic relationship.

## Career

### Early career

Following law school, Slate became an associate at the Detroit-based law firm Jaffe, Raiitt, Heuer & Weiss, where she specialised in marketing and intellectual property law. Slate continues to hold her law license, but has expressed that she has kept it on an inactive status and does not require it for work. She also held public sector positions in the Detroit city government, working as an assistant consultant to a city-wide project on improving sewage system infrastructure.

### Michigan House of Representatives

Slate formally entered politics when she stood as a Republican candidate in the 2012 Michigan House of Representatives election in Michigan's 19th State House of Representatives district, running on a "sensible Republican" platform. Slate has later said that she struggled to balance party loyalty with personal beliefs, stating that she joined the Michigan Republicans on the basis that the Democratic Party had advocated for higher taxes on the middle class. Slate entered the Michigan State House of Representatives after she won 53.1% of the votes cast. As a state representative, Slate frequently voted with the Democrats on social issues, with her legislative work focusing on expanding public transport and natural conservation.

Slate stood for re-election to the Michigan House of Representatives in 2014, narrowly winning the Republican primary with 50.3% of the vote. She obtained a larger majority in the general election, winning 59.4% of the votes cast. In her second term, Slate broke with Republicans on numerous issues and was named the "most bipartisan state representative" in Michigan by numerous local news agencies. Slate did not seek re-election in 2016, instead choosing to run for the Michigan State Senate.