Carol Elizabeth Moseley Braun, also sometimes Moseley-BraunMarja Mills, "The Humble Hyphen", Chicago Times, March 14, 2003, explaining that Moseley Braun adopted the hyphenation on joining the Senate and dropped it 10 years later. (born August 16, 1947), is an American diplomat, politician, and lawyer who represented Illinois in the United States Senate from 1993 to 1999. Moseley Braun was the first African-American woman elected to the U.S. Senate, the first African-American U.S. senator from the Democratic Party and the first female U.S. senator from Illinois.
Moseley Braun was a member of the Illinois House of Representatives from 1979 to 1988 and served as Cook County Recorder of Deeds from 1988 to 1992. She was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1992 after defeating Senator Alan J. Dixon in a Democratic primary. Moseley Braun served one term in the Senate and was defeated by Republican Peter Fitzgerald in 1998.
Following her Senate tenure, Moseley Braun served as the United States Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa from 1999 to 2001. She was a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2004 U.S. presidential election; she withdrew from the race prior to the Iowa caucuses. In November 2010, Moseley Braun began a campaign for mayor of Chicago to replace retiring incumbent Richard M. Daley. She placed fourth in a field of six candidates, losing the 2011 election to Rahm Emanuel. In January 2023, she was nominated by President Joe Biden to serve as a member and chair of the board of directors for the United States African Development Foundation, and began her tenure in April 2024.
Early life, education, family, and early career Carol Elizabeth Moseley was born in Chicago. She attended public and parochial schools. She attended Ruggles School for elementary school, and she attended Parker High School (now the site of Paul Robeson High School) in Chicago.Cook County Clerk website, "Carol Moseley Braun" . Retrieved January 12, 2011 Her father, Joseph J. Moseley, was a Chicago police officer and jail guard and her mother, Edna A. (Davie), was a medical technician in a hospital. Both her parents were Catholic, and Moseley was raised in the faith.
The family lived in a segregated middle-class neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. Her parents divorced when she was in her teens, and she lived with her grandmother.
Moseley began her undergraduate studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, but dropped out after four months. She then majored in political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, graduating in 1969. Moseley earned a J.D. degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1972.
In 1973, Moseley married Michael Braun, whom she had met in law school. The couple had one son, Matthew, in 1977. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1986.
Moseley Braun worked as a prosecutor in the United States Attorney's office in Chicago from 1973 to 1977. As an Assistant United States Attorney, she worked primarily in the civil and appellate law areas. Her work in housing, health policy, and environmental law won her the Attorney General's Special Achievement Award. She stopped working as a prosecutor after her son's birth, and briefly became a homemaker before being persuaded to run for the Illinois state legislature.
Early political career
Moseley Braun was first elected to public office in 1978, when she was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives. She became the first African American woman to serve as assistant majority leader in that body. As a state representative, she became recognized as a champion for liberal social causes. As early as 1984, she proposed a moratorium on the application of the death penalty in Illinois. In what became a landmark reapportionment case, Crosby v. State Board of Elections, she successfully sued her own party and the state of Illinois on behalf of African-American and Hispanic citizens. When she left the state legislature, her colleagues recognized her in a resolution as "the conscience of the House." In 1988, she was elected Cook County Recorder of Deeds, a post she held for four years.
U.S. Senator from Illinois Elections
In 1992, angered by incumbent Democratic senator Alan Dixon's vote to confirm Clarence Thomas despite accusations of sexual harassment from Anita Hill, Moseley Braun challenged Dixon in the primary election for his seat. She was backed by the political coalition from the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago that had previously backed the campaigns of Harold Washington and Jesse Jackson. Democratic candidate Albert Hofeld's campaign ran many anti-Dixon ads, and Moseley Braun won the Democratic primary. On November 3, 1992, Moseley Braun became the first African American woman to be elected to the United States Senate, defeating Republican Richard S. Williamson. Moseley Braun was also the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate from Illinois and the first African American elected to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat.
Moseley Braun was a one-term senator, losing to Republican Peter Fitzgerald in her re-election bid in 1998.
Tenure
Moseley Braun is the first African American woman to serve in the U.S. Senate. Along with Republican Edward Brooke, she was one of two African Americans to serve in the Senate in the 20th century. Moseley Braun was the sole African American in the Senate during her tenure. She was also the first woman to serve on the Senate Finance Committee.
Despite her reputation as a liberal Democrat, Moseley Braun possessed something of a centrist record on economic issues. She voted for the 1993 budget package and against the welfare reform laws passed in 1996, but on many other matters she was more conservative. Moseley Braun voted in favor of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and lawsuit reform measures like the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (she was also among the minority of Democrats to support the even more controversial Common Sense Product Liability and Legal Reform Act of 1995). She also voted contrary to the interests of the more populist wing of the party by voting for the Freedom to Farm Act and the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Like her Illinois colleague, fellow Democrat Paul Simon, she voted in favor of a Balanced Budget Amendment to the United States Constitution. Moseley Braun also voted to place a nuclear spent fuel storage facility in Nevada; this move was strongly opposed by many Democrats, especially future Majority Leader Harry Reid.
On social issues, however, Moseley Braun was significantly more liberal than many of her fellow senators. She was strongly pro-choice, voting against the ban on partial-birth abortions and the restrictions on funding in military bases for abortions. She also voted against the death penalty and in favor of gun control measures. Moseley Braun was one of only fourteen to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act. She delivered a eulogy for Thurgood Marshall in January 1993.
Moseley Braun was the subject of a 1993 Federal Election Commission investigation over $249,000 in unaccounted-for campaign funds. The agency found some small violations, but took no action against Moseley Braun, citing a lack of resources. Moseley Braun only admitted to bookkeeping errors. The Justice Department turned down two requests for investigations from the IRS.Slate, Is Carol Moseley-Braun [sic] a Crook?", February 19, 2003.
Women were not allowed to wear pants on the U.S. Senate floor until 1993. In 1993, Senators Moseley Braun and Barbara Mikulski wore pants onto the floor in defiance of the rule. Soon after, female support staff followed their example. Later that year, the rule was amended by Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Martha Pope to allow women to wear pants on the floor so long as they also wore jackets.
In 1993, Moseley Braun made headlines when she convinced the Senate Judiciary Committee not to renew a design patent for the United Daughters of the Confederacy because it contained the Confederate flag. The patent had been routinely renewed for nearly a century, and despite the Judiciary Committee's disapproval, the Senate was poised to pass a resolution sponsored by Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina that included a provision to authorize the extension of the federal patent. Moseley Braun threatened to filibuster the legislation "until this room freezes over." She also made a plea to her colleagues about the symbolism of the Confederate flag, declaring, "It has no place in our modern times, place in this body, place in our society". Swayed by Moseley Braun's argument, the Senate rejected the UDC's application to renew its patent.
In 1996, Moseley Braun made a private trip to Nigeria, where she met with dictator Sani Abacha. Despite U.S. sanctions against that country due to Abacha's actions, the Senator neither notified nor registered her trip with the State Department. She subsequently defended Abacha's human rights record in Congress.NPR, "2004 Democratic Presidential Candidates Carol Moseley Braun", May 6, 2003 Her former fiancé Kgosie Matthews, who also served on her campaign staff in violation of U.S. immigration regulations,Siskind Susser Bland. "US SENATOR'S CAMPAIGN MANAGER FOUND TO BE WORKING ILLEGALLY ." May 1998. Accessed February 16, 2010. had been a lobbyist for the Nigerian government; Matthews would later leave the country. She paid Matthews, a native of South Africa, a salary of $15,000 a month during the campaign.
In 1998, after George Will wrote a column reviewing the allegations of corruption against her,." September 6, 1998. Moseley Braun responded to Will's comments, saying that "I think because he couldn't say nigger, he said corrupt".(defunct link. as of June 13, 2007.), She also compared Will to a Ku Klux Klansman, saying: "I mean this very sincerely from the bottom of my heart: He can take his hood and put it back on again, as far as I'm concerned". Later, Moseley Braun apologized for her remarks.
U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa
On October 8, 1999,"President Clinton Names Carol Moseley-Braun For U.S. Ambassador To New Zealand" , Office of the Press Secretary (Ottawa, Canada), The White House, October 8, 1999. President Clinton nominated Moseley Braun to be the United States Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa. Although her nomination ran into token opposition from her old adversary, Jesse Helms, and from the senator who defeated her, Peter Fitzgerald, the Senate confirmed her on November 10, 1999, in a 96–2 vote. She served in these roles until 2001.
2004 presidential campaign
Exploratory committee and campaign launch Analysts had speculated that Moseley Braun was preparing for a potential run to reclaim her former Senate seat in the 2004 United States Senate election in Illinois. However, in January 2003, Braun decided against running for the U.S. Senate again. On February 18, 2003, she announced her intention to run for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, doing so in a speech delivered at the University of Chicago Law School. Braun thereafter launched an exploratory committee for a presidential campaign. She had, in the days leading up to this announcement, made her first campaign-season visits to the early primary and caucus states of New Hampshire, Iowa, and South Carolina. In her announcement speech she declared, "It's time to take the 'men only' sign off the White House door." She joined an already sizable field of candidates for the Democratic nomination.