- Pritzker Fellows
- Current Fellows
- Jackie Speier
Jackie Speier
Former U.S. Representative from California
Spring 2024 Pritzker Fellow
Seminar Series: "The Politics of the Personal: Jackie Speier’s Legislative Agenda That Found Its Roots in Life"
Jackie Speier is a former U.S. Congresswoman for California’s 14th district, where she served from 2008 to 2023. Before that, she served on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, the California State Assembly and the California Senate, bringing her total time in public service to over 40 years.
Jackie is a fierce advocate for women’s rights, gun violence prevention, health care, LGBTQ+ rights, and the care of service members and veterans. Her decade-long fight in Congress against sexual assault in the military earned her recognition by Newsweek Magazine as a top “150 Fearless Women of the World.” She was named one of Politico’s 50 most influential people for bringing the “Me Too” reckoning to Congress.
In the California State Legislature, Jackie had a record 300 bills become law and authored the nation’s strongest state financial privacy law, the Gender Tax Repeal Act and jockeyed the assault weapon ban.
While working as a legislative counsel to Congressman Leo Ryan in 1978, and investigating the People’s Temple cult, she was shot five times and the Congressman was assassinated in the Jonestown massacre in Guyana.
Jackie is the author of two bestselling books, Undaunted: Surviving Jonestown, Summoning Courage and Fighting Back and This Is Not the Life I Ordered. She is a graduate of the University of California College of Law and the University of California, Davis. She is married to Barry Dennis and has two children and an adorable goldendoodle dog named Emma.
Seminars
"The Politics of the Personal: Jackie Speier’s Legislative Agenda That Found Its Roots in Life"
Former Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D- CA) spent nearly 15 years in Congress passionately advocating for gun safety, women’s equality, LGBTQ rights and strengthening American security and targeting military waste. In many cases, life begot laws. She first ran for Congress in 1979, after Rep Leo J. Ryan, for whom she worked as a legislative counsel, was shot to death at the Jonestown cult of the People’s Temple in Guyana. Speier traveled with Ryan on that trip in 1978 in an attempt to rescue some of the cult’s 900 members; she was shot five times at point blank range and left to die on the airport tarmac. In 2011, during an intense, late-night debate over abortion, Speier surprised colleagues and herself by revealing her own abortion experience. In 2017, she brought the MeToo movement to Congress by sharing her own experience of workplace misconduct when she was a Congressional aide and led landmark legislation to reduce sexual violence within the military. Speier will discuss how dissent, perseverance and passion come together to give purpose to a life in public service.
Why gun culture is killing us and what we can do about it from the perspective of a gun violence survivor - me - and the most powerful gun violence prevention organization’s CEO. We will unpack the paralysis in Congress and how lawmakers became so out of touch with most of the electorate on this core public safety issue.
Special Guests: Matt McTighe, COO of Everytown for Gun Safety; U.S. Representative Mike Thompson (D-CA), Chair of the Gun Violence Prevention Taskforce of the House of Representatives; and Shannon Watts, Founder of Moms Demand Action
From abortion to sexual assault to sexual harassment, misogyny runs deep in our state and federal laws. But there are reasons to be hopeful. Imagine a liberal Democrat from California and a conservative Republican from Alabama working together to transform how sexual harassment cases are handled in Congress. We will hear from them and explore to what extent the vote by women will be determinative in November.
Economic discrimination against women has profound implications. We will explore how no-fault divorce, the pink tax, the lack of social security benefits for stay-at-home parents and the lack of an ERA in our Constitution have crippled women in acquiring economic security.
Special Guest: Katherine Spillar, Executive Director of the Feminist Majority Foundation & Executive Editor of Ms. Magazine
We are urged to find consensus and drown out dissent. Do we make the right decisions when getting to yes? What is it like to be the sole no vote? We will talk to a professor who has the answers and a member of Congress who has the scars.
Special Guests: Barbara Lee, U.S. Representative (D-CA); and Charlan Nemeth, Professor in the Department of Psychology at UC Berkeley & Author of “In Defense of Troublemakers: The Power of Dissent in Life and Business”