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Christopher Van Hollen MPP 1985 joins 25 other HKS degree-program & executive education alumni in Congress.

By Doug Gavel
November 10, 2016
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Christopher Van Hollen MPP 1985 will join Harvard Kennedy School alumnus Jack Reed MPP 1973 (Rhode Island) in the U.S. Senate next January after winning the seat of retiring Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski. Van Hollen served seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives after 12 years in the Maryland General Assembly. He has called for improving education, expanding the economy, and election reform.

Van Hollen and members of the 115th Congress will face many difficult challenges during the next two years as a new presidential administration assumes power. He joins 25 other HKS degree-program and executive education alumni who won election. (Michigan’s long-serving Congressman Sander Levin, a former IOP Fellow, also was reelected.)

Katherine M. Clark MPA 1997, Stephen F. Lynch MPA 1999, and Seth Moulton MPA 2011 were all reelected in Massachusetts. Other HKS alumni who were reelected to House seats include:

  • Earl Blumenauer HKSEE 1983 (Oregon)
  • Brendan Boyle MPP 2005 (Pennsylvania)
  • Lacy Clay HKSEE 1993 (Missouri)
  • Michael Coffman HKSEE 1995 (Colorado)
  • Gerald Connolly MPA 1979 (Virginia)
  • Mark DeSaulnier HKSEE 2003 (California)
  • Marcia Fudge HKSEE 2007 (Ohio)
  • Brian Higgins MPA 1996 (New York)
  • Daniel Kildee HKSEE 2005 (Michigan)
  • James R. Langevin MPA 1994 (Rhode Island)
  • Michael McCaul HKSEE 2002 (Texas)
  • Martha McSally MPP 1990 (Arizona)
  • John Moolenaar MPA 1989 (Michigan)
  • Gwendolynne Moore HKSEE 2000 (Wisconsin)
  • William Pascrell HKSEE 1993 (New Jersey)
  • Chellie Pingree HKSEE 1996 (Maine)
  • Cedric Richmond HKSEE 2003 (Louisiana)
  • Dennis Ross HKSEE 2007 (Florida)
  • and Raul Ruiz MPP 2001 (California). 

Several new House members will be sworn into office in January, including HKS alumni Salud Carbajal HKSEE 2013 (California) and Thomas O’Halleran HKSEE 2005 (Arizona).

Kate Brown HKSEE 1998 was elected governor of Oregon. Brown, who assumed the Oregon governor’s office in February 2015 after her predecessor resigned because of a scandal, became the first openly LGBT candidate to win a gubernatorial race.