Introduction
A few women join the congress in US; however, Donna Edwards constitute such few persons. Born in North Carolina, she attained elevated levels of education. Consequently, she defined her career, which focuses on enlightening the public about their rights. She fought in the quest for rights, as evident in her actions in countries like Sudan.
It is imperative to assert that Donna launched her political career in 2006 thus overthrowing Wynn as evident in 2008. She has reformed the healthcare system in Maryland, thus enhancing the state of women (Edwards). She equally strives to reform the education sector by initiating superior programmes that aim at offering competent graduates.
Background Information
Donna F. Edwards was born in 1958 in North Carolina, and had six siblings. Her father was a member of the Air Force throughout the warfare in Vietnam. It is significant to note that Donna was among the few women academics during that time.
This is factual since she completed her first degree at the Wake Forest University where she was among the few colour women present in her class. Later on, she proceeded to study a degree in law at the Franklin Pierce Law Centre (AFN). Donna has since involved in diversified careers mostly working for non-profit oriented organizations.
For instance, prior to her congress job, she was an executive director in Arca foundation where she helped champion the need for ending capital punishment, promote labour and human rights, as well as ensuring independence of the judiciary.
Furthermore, she was involved in the effort of concluding domestic violence in America. It is remarkable that Donna involved herself in the demonstration against genocide in Darfur, outer surface of the Sudan Embassy where they were protesting against the refusal to offer humanitarian aid to the victims.
During that remonstration, she was arrested after breaching police orders of maintaining a line, which was meant to protect the embassy (Bartlett).
Her first political conquest was in 2006 where she contested in the democratic primary for the Maryland seat. She lost by a thin margin to Wynn but that did end her desire to represent Maryland. In July 2008, Donna Edwards again declared that she would face off with Albert Wynn for the Maryland seat.
She criticised Wynn regarding frequent support on republican proposals, for instance 2002 vote that was in support of Iraq invasion by the United States.
She claimed that the bush administration was not sensitive to the wishes of Americans and with this notion as the campaign slogan; she began her onslaught on Wynn. She embarked on an effective low profile campaign based on her connections with local groupings.
Despite the fact that her rival managed to spend excessive money on his campaign, she managed to defeat Wynn on the 2008 January primary achieving a decisive 22% points. On his defeat, Wynn opted to resign rather than finish his period of office. This gave way to a special election in which she received weak competition from her republican opponent.
She comfortably won the election by gaining 81% of the total votes (AFN). The officials swore her in to serve the remaining term of Wynn. In November 2008, she contested for a full term in the United States 2008 elections where she defeated the democratic candidate, Peter James, by gaining 85% of the total votes.
Issues Proposed
Education and healthcare form backbone of the society and adequate tackling of these issues would mean a better US. It is notable that education system has since diminished in the contemporary America, and other overseas nations are surpassing the home standards.
Healthcare is another important element of the society that the congressperson should present to the senate for discussion and subsequent passage of laws. The existing healthcare scheme is not addressing the health concerns of the current populace. Striking matters include the cover by the insurance firms, as well as women’s health.
Health Care System
Donna has shown commendable work in health care system in the US. She has influenced moderates’ efforts to make sure that the health care legislation is more progressive. It is important to note that Donna has strongly advocated for the enactment of a health care scheme that would help in tackling issues of racial inequalities.
For instance, she advocated for a government sponsored medical care that would help in providing health care to individuals despite of their social and fiscal status. The desire to amend a broken health care system, which was only dominated by insurance companies’ profits, was one of her major inspiration to run for the congress seat in Maryland.
Her contribution to the health care legislation targeted checking the ever-rising insurance deductions (Edwards). She determined to offer a better, accessible and a cheaper healthcare for the millions of American who are not capable of accessing services due to their financial constraints and disparities.
Some of the contributions she made in the legislation included the ability of parents to insure their children up to the age of twenty six years, prohibiting insurance company from stopping offering insurance cover once someone gets sick, offering tax exemptions to the small businesses with the aim of making them afford insurance cover among others.
She claims that the health care system does not take care of the various problems relating to women. An example of the many problems that face women is domestic violence. Insurance companies deny many women suffering from domestic brutality coverage.
They cite that such violence is considered therapeutic condition that has already been existing; therefore, it is not viable for coverage (Edwards). Other problems facing this bias include pregnancy and caesarean section. It is her belief that the continued discrimination on these problems would turn many women live without medical cover.
To examine this discrimination tendency of insurance firms, she further claims that majority of black women lack access to the basic primary healthiness care.
This has also brought in the notion that the minority, who include the people of colour, have difficulty in accessing the basic health care. Statistics from the Office of the Minority show that African American women together with other females of colour are likely to die from cancer in comparison to their native counterpart.
This is factual as they lack easy admission to the required diagnosis facilities and treatment of cancer (Edwards). This leads to the increase of cost of medical treatment in the end and sometimes may result into the death of the infected.
Further research by the “Joint Centre for Political and Economic studies” shows that the cost of health inequalities and premature death totalled $1.2 trillion, and further advised that eliminating such disparities would help reduce the medical expenditure of this same group.
This is the same reason as to why she is advocating for a reformed health care to expand the access to basic care and reduce the deduction of preventive care.
According to her, the elimination of these inequalities and discriminatory insurance practices that affect minorities and women is cost effective and is the right direction.
In order to achieve this, a combination of cover reforms that would hold cover companies answerable and strong health indemnity meant for the citizens that would provide the required competition, which will lead to the reduction of cost of medical care.
The public insurance option will be able to provide the middle class and the working family with a wide range of choices and benefits that would include preventive care and long-term medical care. The public insurance option should be attached to a medical doctor and this would make the patients and doctors in full control instead of leaving it to the exploiting insurance companies.
Education
Education is the most crucial aspect of ensuring the long-term success of every child. Her priority is to guarantee that all the children have admittance to quality education from nursery to high school. Furthermore, she strives to improve “science and technology sector and mathematics curricula, and increasing the chances of students to join college and vocational schools”.
Her continued drive to improve the education system in Maryland has made the state offer worthy education system and, the award that was given to Maryland in 2011 in recognition of its public education system confirmed this.
Her stand on education is the availability and access by everyone despite the differences in race, ethnic or financial status (CDFE). She recognises that education is the fundamental element for ascertaining that children can be successful in this world.
It is crucial to declare that Donna has commenced some school programmes in Maryland that aim at strengthening the education system. She introduced the after- school meal program whereby she campaigned for funds to help in the provision of free lunch and dinner to students who take part in the after school programmes.
Her view is that most children are not able to afford nutritious meals because of the financial restraints experienced by their parents. Through this, the students would have little distraction in their learning process as this would aid in their acquisition of good health, development and increase their ability to learn hence improving the quality of education.
Student aid would enable the have-nots counter financial constraints that limit their access to education. This aims at ensuring the minority races in America have chance to schooling. The student aid act would provide education to significant proportions of Americans who are not able to pay for edification. It is believable that this would be the highest investment programme in college aid history.
It reforms the federal student loan system whereby it ensures grants are available to students, as well as finance to the community colleges to help in the development of their career training programmes. This would ensure that Maryland train skilled graduates who are able to offer an effective workforce that compete fairly in the global marketplace (CDFE).
By making significant investments to improve the basic research, science and technology, and foster innovation, The Completes Reauthorization Act would help in the creation of jobs opportunities in America (CDFE). Furthermore, it should augment innovation capabilities and strengthen America’s scientific and fiscal headship for many years.
Through this Act, she was able to campaign for the less represented minorities and teachers to ensure that they receive special consideration when it came to awarding grants. To her, this Act would go a long way in ensuring that education is available to all students regardless of their social status or financial background.
Conclusion
It is certain that Donna Edwards has played some pivotal roles in the lives of several Americans and others. Her education status, coupled with champion for human rights have helped her rising to the seat of congressional representative of Maryland. Donna has made remarkable steps in streamlining the healthcare and education systems of her state.
Works Cited
AFN. America’s Future Now! 2010 Speaker Biographies. (ND). Web.
Bartlett, Anne. Rep. Donna Edwards Arrested in Darfur Protest. The Washington Post. April 27, 2009. Web.
CDFE. Congresswoman Edwards Applauds Investments in Education With Race to the Top Competition. CDFE. November 17, 2009. Web.
Edwards, Donna. Health Care Reform: What’s in it for Women? The Washington informer. October 22, 2009. Web.