Chellie Pingree 2012
(1955- ) Rochelle “Chellie” Pingree is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from the First Congressional District. She was re-elected in 2012 and 2010, having been elected in 2008 as the first woman representing the district. It marked the first time in American history that women made up the majority of a state’s Congressional Delegation.
Pingree has served on the Agriculture and the Armed Services committees in the House.
In the Congress that convenes in 2013, she will serve on the House Appropriations Committee, which sets spending priorities for federal programs. She will be only the second House Member from Maine since 1899 to serve on that Committee.
Prior to her election she was the National President and CEO of Common Cause from 2003 to 2007.
Before that she had been a member of the Maine State Senate from 1993 through 2000, representing her home town of North Haven and nearby towns. She was the majority leader for the Democrats in 1997, only the second woman to have that honor. After being term-limited from the Maine Senate in 2000, Pingree unsuccessfully challenged incumbent U.S. Senator Susan Collins in 2002.
Pingree, then Chellie Johnson, was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1955, the youngest of four children. She later attended the University of Southern Maine, and graduated from the College of the Atlantic, in Bar Harbor in 1979.
In North Haven she had served on the school board, chaired the board of assessors, 1982-1983, and was member of the planning board, 1981-1991. She also operated a small farm with her husband Charles. They later divorced.
In the 1980s she founded and operated North Island Yarn, a retail store featuring products of local knitters. She sold the business in 1993, her first year in the Maine Senate. Since 2006, Pingree has been co-owner of Nebo Lodge, a bed & breakfast and restaurant on North Haven.
Pingree’s husband, Donald Sussman, owner of a hedge fund investment firm, has an ownership stake in Maine Today Media, which owns the Portland Press Herald and other newspapers in Maine.
Her oldest daughter Hannah Pingree, is a former Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives.
Additional resources
“Pingree, Chellie.” Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=P000597 (accessed January 1, 2013)
“About Chellie.” U.S. House of Representatives. Directory of Representatives. http://pingree.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=27&Itemid=18 (accessed January 1, 2013)