2020 presidential race: Who is Amy Klobuchar?

U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota announced her candidacy for president in February 2019 in Minneapolis.

Here are some things to know about Klobuchar:

  • Klobuchar was born May 25, 1960, in Plymouth, Minnesota. Her father was a newspaperman and her mother was an elementary school teacher.
  • Klobuchar attended Wayzata High School in Plymouth, where she graduated as the valedictorian of her class. She graduated magna cum laude from Yale University and the University of Chicago Law School.
  • Klobuchar went on to practice commercial law in Minnesota. Her first foray into politics came after her daughter was born in the 1990s with a condition that kept her from swallowing, according to a 2010 profile in Elle magazine. Klobuchar told the magazine that 24 hours after her daughter was born, "They threw me out of the hospital, which is horrible even if your baby's not sick." After that experience, Klobuchar used the contacts she'd gained as an attorney to lobby Minnesota to guarantee a 48-hour hospital stay for new mothers and their babies, according to Elle. President Bill Clinton later made the law federal. "I had to go and testify about things like your water breaking, so I told them very detailed things to make them feel squeamish so they'd pass the bill the right way," Klobuchar told Elle.
  • Klobuchar worked at a pair of law firms before being elected to serve as attorney for Hennepin County in 1998, a role she held from 1999 to 2006.
  • Klobuchar had mulled a run for the state attorney general's office, but she decided to instead go for a seat in the U.S. Senate after then-Sen. Mark Dayton announced he wouldn't run again, according to the Star Tribune. She became the first woman elected to represent Minnesota in the U.S. Senate in 2006.
  • Klobuchar married her husband, University of Baltimore School of Law professor John Bessler, in 1993. The couple has a daughter named Abigail.

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