Member-only story
Vetting: Kirsten Gillibrand
“Vetting” is a series of essays that will provide in-depth analysis of the records of the more overlooked 2020 Democratic candidates.
I've been a New Yorker for more than sixteen years now and Kirsten Gillibrand has been my senator for ten of those years. However, many Americans only became familiar with the junior senator from New York in late 2017 when she became the first Democratic senator to call on then-Senator Al Franken to resign his office.
And still others have never heard her name at all. That being said, who is Kirsten Gillibrand?
Kirsten Gillibrand, nee Rutnik, was born on December 9, 1966 in upstate New York. Her parents were attorneys who ran a law practice together. (Her father, Douglas, later became a high-power lobbyist.) Her maternal grandmother, Polly Noonan, was a political heavy-hitter in upstate New York.
Gillibrand attended Emma Willard School a private boarding school for girls in Troy, New York, a school whose alumnae include Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Jane Fonda. After graduating, Gillibrand attended Dartmouth University where she…
