| Lois Capps | |
| Office: | Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California |
| Term Start: | March 17, 1998 |
| Term End: | January 3, 2017 |
| Predecessor: | Walter Capps |
| Successor: | Salud Carbajal |
| Constituency: | (1998–2003) (2003–2013) (2013–2017) |
| Birth Name: | Lois Ragnhild Grimsrud |
| Birth Date: | 10 January 1938 |
| Birth Place: | Ladysmith, Wisconsin, U.S. |
| Party: | Democratic |
| Children: | 3 |
| Education: | Pacific Lutheran University (BS) Yale University (MA) University of California, Santa Barbara (MA) |
Lois Ragnhild Capps (née Grimsrud; January 10, 1938) is an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for from 1998 to 2017. She is a member of the Democratic Party. The district, numbered as the 22nd District from 1998 to 2003 and the 23rd from 2003 to 2013, includes all of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties and a portion of Ventura County.
Capps served on the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce, where she was a member of the Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee and the Subcommittee on Health. She was a member of the New Democrat Coalition.
Capps was born Lois Ragnhild Grimsrud in Ladysmith, Wisconsin, the daughter of Solveig Magdalene (née Gullixson) and Rev. Jurgen Milton Grimsrud, a Lutheran minister. Both of her parents' families came from Norway.[1] She has lived in Santa Barbara since 1964. She was educated at Pacific Lutheran University with a bachelor's degree in nursing. She earned a master's degree in religion at Yale Divinity School in 1964[2] and a Master of Arts degree in education at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1990.[3] [4]
Walter Capps was elected to Congress in 1996 in a rematch of his 1994 race against Republican Andrea Seastrand. However, he died of a heart attack on October 28, 1997, only nine months into his term. His widow won the then-22nd District seat by defeating Republican Tom Bordonaro in a special election on March 10, 1998. She was sworn into the 105th Congress on March 17. Lois Capps successfully defended her seat against Bordonaro in a general election later that year, and commenced her first full term in office.
In 2000, Capps retained the 22nd district seat, defeating Republican Mike Stoker with 53% of the vote. She was the first Democrat to hold the district for more than one term in over 50 years (the district, known as the 11th from its formation in 1943 until 1953, the 13th from 1953 to 1975 and the 19th from 1975 to 1993, had been held by Republicans from 1947 until Walter Capps was sworn in 1997).
Capps' district was renumbered as the 23rd after the 2000 census and made somewhat safer, and she was reelected without serious opposition in 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010. Her district was renumbered as the 24th District after the 2010 census.[5] David Wasserman, House editor of The Cook Political Report, predicted that this would be a more difficult race, and local Republicans confirmed that Capps was one of their top targets in California.[6] The reconfigured district still includes Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo, but was redrawn to include most of the more Republican inland areas of Santa Barbara County.[7] Capps eventually beat her opponent, Abel Maldonado, with 54.8% of the vote.[8]
In 2014, Capps ran against Republican Chris Mitchum, an actor, screenwriter, and businessman. Mitchum is the son of legendary film star Robert Mitchum. This was Mitchum's second consecutive try for the 24th district, having previously lost the 2012 primary to Abel Maldonado.[9] In the closest race of her entire congressional career, Capps ultimately won with only a 3.8% margin over Mitchum.[10]
Capps announced in April 2015 that she would not seek reelection in 2016.[11]
Capps has been described as a "solid liberal". In The Washingtonian magazine's 2006 "Best and Worst of Congress" poll of congressional staffers, Capps was named the nicest member of Congress.[12]
In 2011, Capps voted for the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 as part of a controversial provision that allows the government and the military to indefinitely detain American citizens and others without trial.[13]
In 1960, while at Yale, she married Walter Capps, a divinity student at Yale who later became a prominent religious studies professor at UCSB; they eventually had three children. Walter died in 1997 and their eldest daughter Lisa died in 2000. Lois Capps worked for 20 years as a nurse and health advocate for the Santa Barbara public schools and also taught early childhood education part-time at Santa Barbara City College. Capps' daughter, Laura, was married to Bill Burton, a political consultant who served as Deputy White House Press Secretary in the Obama administration.
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