Jackie Speier (pronounced SPEAR) has lived her entire life inside California’s scenic 12th Congressional District, which she has represented in Congress since April, 2008. She previously served the residents of the San Francisco Peninsula on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors and in the California Assembly and Senate.
Jackie was the first California legislator to give birth while in office and, during her time in Sacramento, authored more than 300 bills that were signed into law by both Republican and Democratic governors. These included the nation’s strongest financial privacy law and measures that expanded women’s access to reproductive health services, ended gender-based pricing at retail establishments and safeguarded children from hazardous products. Her law to improve collection of delinquent child support has resulted in tens of billions of dollars being recovered for single parents since enactment. She also led high-profile investigations of fraudulent and wasteful government spending which saved taxpayers many more millions of dollars.
Jackie continues her focus on consumer and taxpayer issues in the House of Representatives. She is an outspoken critic of the earmark process which allows politicians to direct funding toward favored projects and was an early proponent of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, created to help level the playing field for American consumers and investors when dealing with banks and credit card companies.
She has also pushed for a crackdown on toxins in children’s products, leading to the recall of 12 million “Shrek” drinking glasses sold at McDonald’s and introduced the “Do Not Track Me Online Act” to enable consumers to opt-out of any collection of personal information by websites, email providers and other online entities. In addition, she fought to require investment advisors to protect their customers’ interests and prohibit credit rating agencies from advising the firms they rate. She is widely credited with being the driving force behind forcing Craigslist to remove its Adult Services section.
Nationally, Jackie is best known for her passionate and compelling speeches on the House floor, such as her unscripted response to a congressional colleague who trivialized women who, like her, have had medically-necessary second trimester abortions. She also frequently goes to the floor to tell the personal stories of men and women in our armed forces who have been raped or sexually assaulted while in the line of duty.
Locally, Jackie is known as a fighter. In 1978, as a staff member to then-Congressman Leo J. Ryan, she was shot five times while trying to rescue constituents from the People’s Temple compound in Jonestown, Guyana – an attack that left Congressman Ryan and six others dead and was followed by the mass murder-suicide of more than 900 Temple followers. Jackie tenaciously hung onto life for 23 hours on a dusty airstrip before aid arrived. It is this fighting spirit that defines her to her constituents back home.
When a devastating gas pipeline explosion destroyed a neighborhood in San Bruno, the residents and city officials turned to Jackie to help lead the effort to determine the cause, repair the damage and find a solution to keep the incident from happening elsewhere in the country. She convened community meetings, held local utility officials accountable and prodded state and federal officials to personally get involved, ultimately leading the Pacific Gas & Electric Company to institute new safety measures and provide increased help for affected residents. Jackie followed up by authoring the “National Pipeline Safety Act” to reduce the risk of similar catastrophes by requiring better and more frequent testing of high-pressure gas pipelines located near residential areas.
Jackie serves on the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Committee on Homeland Security where she is the Ranking Member on the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence. She is also a member of her party’s leadership team as Senior Whip, working within the Democratic caucus to push issues that will create jobs and strengthen the middle class.
Jackie received a BA in Political Science from University of California at Davis and a JD from UC Hastings College of the Law. She is also a best-selling author. Along with her husband, Barry Dennis, and children, Jackson and Stephanie, Jackie is a proud fan of the World Champion San Francisco Giants and enjoys yoga, golf and anything that allows her to spend time with her family.
File photo of Jackie Speier (D-CA), Member of the United States House of Representatives 
With the 2014 Winter Paralympics set for March, Wikinews sought comment from U.S. Representative , who serves California's 14th congressional district about the event and how current U.S. policies impact people with disabilities.   Elected to the U.S. House in 2008, she serves on the  and the .  For the first time ever, the Paralympics will be broadcast live in the U.S. on network television.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

: Will "Obamacare" have a positive or negative impact on the lives of people with disabilities?

::'''Jackie Speier''': By-and-large the  will have a significant and lasting beneficial impact on persons with disabilities ... Most importantly, pre-existing conditions will no longer prevent persons with disabilities from obtaining health insurance.  Lifetime limits on medical expenses will be removed and preventive services will be free. All of these provisions of the law create health insurance that is highly supportive of good health outcomes for everyone, but in particular for those who have a disability.

: Are there any Paralympic athletes or elite athletes with disabilities from your district that people should know more about?

'''Jackie Speier''': There are currently two Paralympic athletes who train or live in my district that people will definitely hear more about in the coming years. One is a young woman named Allie Hyatt who trains in  with Willy Cahill, whom I have also trained with. Allie, who is visually impaired and just 15, has already won numerous awards and will participate in the Youth Olympic Games next year. She is sure to be a force in the Judo world for many, many years. Hyatt lives in San Francisco and Cahill is the founder and CEO of the Blind Judo Foundation.
 
 Another great athlete is Mohamend Lahna who is training for the Rio Olympics in 2016 for the paratriathlon," Speier continued. "He is from Morocco originally but lives now in San Mateo and trains daily at the College of San Mateo. He runs marathons with a prosthetic leg and has his sights set on winning several medals atworld and Olympic events in the future. Lahna has proximal femoral focal deficiency (PFFD), a birth defect that affects the hip and pelvis. He is married and has a 1-year-old child.

''Wikinews'' also sought comment from other members of Congress, including , , , ,  and  but at publication time, had received no response.


== Sources == 

*
*
*