July 23-24, 2007 · · Renaissance Washington, DC Hotel · · Washington, DC

BIOGRAPHIES

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U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX)

In 1993, Kay Bailey Hutchison was elected as the first woman to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate. Seven years later, more than four million Texans re-elected her to a second full term – no other Texas candidate has ever captured more votes. In 2006, she was again re-elected by an overwhelming margin. She serves in the Senate leadership, having been elected by her colleagues to be chairman of the Republican Policy Committee in the 110th Congress, making her the fourth-highest ranking Senate Republican. Her accomplishments include creating innovative education policies, overseeing and guiding the direction of America’s space program, and reducing barriers to health care in underserved and minority communities.

Alphonso Jackson
Secretary, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

Alphonso Jackson was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the nation's 13th Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in March 2004. He is responsible for guiding HUD in its mission of providing affordable housing and promoting economic development, an assignment to which he brings more than 25 years of experience in both the private and public sectors. Secretary Jackson joined the Administration in June
2001 as HUD's Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer. In this role, he managed the day-to-day operations of the $32 billion agency and instilled a new commitment to ethics and accountability within HUD's programs and among its workforce and grant partners.

Margaret Spellings
Secretary, U.S. Department of Education

As the first mother of school-aged children to serve as U.S. Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings has been a leader in making education more innovative and responsive. She has partnered with states to implement and enforce the No Child Left Behind Act, which has led to rising test scores and shrinking achievement gaps in states across the country. She supported teachers with new financial incentives for gains in student achievement and parents with new educational choices and options. Secretary Spellings also proposed a landmark Plan for Higher Education, and she worked to implement Academic Competitiveness and National SMART grants, which are providing millions of dollars to low-income students who major in math, science, or critical foreign languages.

U.S. Senator Norm Coleman (MN)

A passion for change and getting things done has defined the life of Norm Coleman from an early age. It has led him from campus organizer in the sixties, to a prosecutor in the seventies, to Solicitor General of Minnesota in the eighties, to mayor of Saint Paul in the nineties, and now to proudly representing all of Minnesota in the U.S. Senate. Senator Coleman was sworn in on January 7, 2003, and currently sits on the Senate Agriculture, Homeland Security and Government Affairs, Foreign Relations, Small Business, and Special Aging Committees. Among other accomplishments, his four year tenure as Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations rooted out over $12 billion in waste, fraud, abuse, and potential taxpayer savings.