Congresswoman Barbara Lee was first elected to represent California's ninth Congressional district in 1998.

After serving on the International Relations and Financial Services committees, in 2007 she joined the House Appropriations Committee, which controls the federal purse strings and is widely viewed as one of the most powerful committees in Congress. She serves on the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Subcommittee, the Foreign Operations Subcommittee and the Legislative Branch Subcommittee.

Congresswoman Lee is the cochair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, first vice chair of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), and a senior Democratic whip. She also serves as cochair of the CBC Outreach Task Force.

Congresswoman Lee is committed to eradicating poverty, fostering opportunity, and protecting the most vulnerable in our society. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, she wrote the poverty section of the CBC’s Gulf Coast reconstruction legislation and introduced a package of bills designed to make poverty eradication a priority for Congress.

Congresswoman Lee graduated from Mills College in Oakland and received her MSW from the University of California, Berkeley. Before being elected to Congress, she served in the California State Assembly from 1990 to 1996 and in the California State Senate from 1996 to 1998.