Tulsi Gabbard

Tulsi Gabbard, born April 12, 1981 is an American politician and United States Army Reserve officer who served as the U.S. Representative for Hawaii’s 2nd congressional district from 2013 to 2021. Elected in 2012, she was the first Hindu member of Congress and also the first Samoan-American voting member of Congress. In early February 2019 she announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 United States presidential election.

In 2002, Gabbard was elected to the Hawaii House of Representatives at the age of 21. Gabbard served in a field medical unit of the Hawaii Army National Guard in Iraq from 2004 to 2005 and was deployed to Kuwait from 2008 to 2009 as an Army Military Police platoon leader. She was a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee from 2013 to 2016, when she resigned to endorse Senator Bernie Sanders for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.

Gabbard supports a two-tier universal health care plan that she calls “Single Payer Plus”. She supports strengthening Roe v. Wade by codifying it into federal law, and believes that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare”, although it is not a choice she would personally make. She co-sponsored the Family Act for paid family and medical leave and endorsed universal basic income. She opposes military interventionism, although she has called herself a “hawk” on terrorism. Her decision to meet Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and her skeptical approach to two claims that he had used chemical weapons were controversial.

On March 19, 2020, Gabbard dropped out of the 2020 presidential race and endorsed Joe Biden. She had already withdrawn from her U.S. House re-election race during her presidential campaign and was succeeded by Kai Kahele on January 3, 2021.

Early life and family

Gabbard was born on April 12, 1981, in Leloaloa, Maoputasi County, on American Samoa’s main island of Tutuila. She was the fourth of five children born to Carol (née Porter) Gabbard and her husband, Mike Gabbard. In 1983, when Gabbard was two years old, her family moved to Hawaii, where her family had lived in the late 1970s.

Gabbard was raised in a multicultural household. Her mother was born in Indiana and grew up in Michigan. Her father was born in American Samoa and lived in Hawaii and Florida as a child; he is of Samoan and European ancestry.

Gabbard was raised in part according to the teachings of the Science of Identity Foundation (SIF) religious community and its spiritual leader, Chris Butler. She has said Butler’s work still guides her. In 2015, Gabbard called Butler her guru dev (roughly, “spiritual teacher”). Gabbard’s husband and ex-husband have also been members of the community. Gabbard has been reluctant to speak publicly about the SIF.

Gabbard embraced the Hindu faith as a teenager. Her first name comes from the Sanskrit word for holy basil, a plant sacred in Hinduism. Her siblings also have Hindu Sanskrit-origin names. She was homeschooled through high school except for two years at informal schools in the Philippines.

In 1998, Gabbard began working for the Alliance for Traditional Marriage and Values, an anti-gay political action committee her father founded, to pass an amendment giving the Hawaii state legislature the power to “reserve marriage to opposite-sex couples”. She spoke on the organization’s behalf as late as 2004, and called those seeking same-sex marriage “a small number of homosexual extremists.”

In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Gabbard worked for a nonprofit, Stand Up For America (SUFA), founded by her father.

In 2002, while working as a self-employed martial arts instructor, Gabbard was the youngest legislator ever elected to represent the 42nd House district of the Hawaii House of Representatives.

In 2004, Gabbard volunteered for Army National Guard service in Iraq and chose not to campaign for reelection. Before her deployment to Iraq in 2004, she also worked as an educator for the Healthy Hawai’i Coalition.

Military service

In April 2003, while serving in the Hawaii State Legislature, Gabbard enlisted in the Hawaii Army National Guard. In July 2004, she was deployed for a 12-month tour in Iraq, serving as a specialist with the Medical Company, 29th Support Battalion, 29th Infantry Brigade Combat Team. In Iraq, Gabbard served at Logistical Support Area Anaconda, completing her tour in 2005.

In March 2007, she graduated from the Accelerated Officer Candidate School at the Alabama Military Academy. She was commissioned as a second lieutenant, and assigned to the 29th Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 29th Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the Hawaii Army National Guard, this time to serve as an Army Military Police officer. She was deployed to Kuwait from 2008 to 2009. She was one of the first women to enter a Kuwaiti military facility, as well as the first woman to receive an award of appreciation from the Kuwait National Guard.

Gabbard is a recipient of the Combat Medical Badge and the Meritorious Service Medal. On October 12, 2015, she was promoted from the rank of captain to major at a ceremony at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. She continued to serve as a major in the Hawaii Army National Guard until her transfer to the 351st Civil Affairs Command, a California-based United States Army Reserve unit assigned to the United States Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command, in June 2020.

On August 7, 2018, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported that the Hawaii Army National Guard had instructed Gabbard that a video of her in uniform on her VoteTulsi Facebook page did not comply with military ethics rules. Gabbard’s campaign removed the video and added a disclaimer to the website’s banner image of Gabbard in uniform in a veterans’ cemetery that the image does not imply an endorsement from the military. A similar situation had happened during a previous Gabbard congressional campaign. A spokeswoman for Gabbard said the campaign would work closely with the Department of Defense to ensure compliance with all regulations.

Education

In 2002, at the age of 21, Gabbard dropped out of Leeward Community College, where she was studying television production, to successfully run for Hawaii state legislature.

In 2009, Gabbard graduated from Hawaii Pacific University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a concentration in International Business.

Political career

Hawaii House of Representatives (2002–2004)

In 2002, after redistricting, Gabbard won the four-candidate Democratic primary with a plurality of 48% of the vote. Gabbard then won the general election with 65% of the vote, defeating Republican Alfonso Jimenez. At the age of 21, Gabbard became the youngest legislator ever elected in Hawaii’s history, and was at the time the youngest woman ever elected to a U.S. state legislature.

During her term of office, Gabbard successfully led opposition to, and protests of, a state bill that would have legalized same-sex civil unions, and urged Hawaiians to support the Federal Marriage Amendment to prevent federal law from overriding state law with regard to same-sex marriage.

In 2004, Gabbard filed for reelection, but then volunteered for Army National Guard service in Iraq. Rida Cabanilla, who filed to run against her, called on Gabbard to resign because she would not be able to represent her district from Iraq. Gabbard announced in August 2004 that she would not campaign for a second term, and Cabanilla won the Democratic primary, 64%–25%. State law prevented the removal of Gabbard’s name from the ballot.

Honolulu City Council (2011–2012)

After returning home from her second deployment to the Middle East in 2009, Gabbard ran for a seat on the Honolulu City Council vacated by City Councilman Rod Tam, of the 6th district, who decided to retire in order to run for mayor of Honolulu. In the 10-candidate nonpartisan open primary in September 2010, Gabbard finished first with 33% of the vote. In the November 2 runoff election she defeated Sesnita Moepono, 58%–42%.

Gabbard introduced a measure to help food truck vendors by loosening parking restrictions. She also introduced Bill 54, a measure that authorized city workers to confiscate personal belongings stored on public property with 24 hours’ notice to its owner. After overcoming opposition from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Occupy Hawai’i, Bill 54 passed and became City Ordinance 1129.

United States House of Representatives (2013–2021)

2012 election and first term (113th Congress)

In early 2011, Mazie Hirono, the incumbent Democratic U.S. Representative for Hawaii’s 2nd congressional district, announced that she would run for the United States Senate. In May 2011, Gabbard announced her candidacy for Hirono’s House seat. The Democratic Mayor of Honolulu, Mufi Hannemann, was the best-known candidate in the six-way primary, but Gabbard won with 62,882 votes (55%); the Honolulu Star-Advertiser called her win an “improbable rise from a distant underdog to victory.” On August 16, Gabbard resigned from the City Council in order to focus on her congressional campaign and to prevent the cost of holding a special election.

As the Democratic nominee, Gabbard spoke at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, at the invitation of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who called Gabbard “an emerging star.” She won the general election on November 6, 2012, defeating Republican Kawika Crowley by 168,503 to 40,707 votes (80.6%–19.4%), becoming the first voting Samoan-American and first Hindu member of Congress.

In December 2012, Gabbard applied to be considered for appointment to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the death of Daniel Inouye, but despite support from prominent mainland Democrats, she was not among the three candidates the Democratic Party of Hawaii selected.

In March 2013, Gabbard introduced the “Helping Heroes Fly Act”, which sought to improve airport security screenings for severely wounded veterans. It passed Congress and was signed into law by President Barack Obama. She also introduced the house version of the Military Justice Improvement Act.

Second term (114th Congress)

Gabbard was reelected on November 8, 2014, defeating Crowley again, by 142,010 to 33,630 votes (78.7%–18.6%); Libertarian candidate Joe Kent garnered 4,693 votes (2.6%).

Along with Senator Hirono, Gabbard introduced a bill to award the Congressional Gold Medal to Filipinos and Filipino American veterans who had fought in World War II. The bill passed Congress and was signed into law by President Obama in December 2016.

Gabbard also introduced “Talia’s Law” which sought to prevent child abuse and neglect on military bases. It was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama in December 2016.

Third term (115th Congress)

Gabbard was reelected on November 8, 2016, defeating Republican nominee Angela Kaaihue by 170,848 to 39,668 votes (81.2%–18.8%).

In 2017, Gabbard introduced the “Off Fossil Fuels (OFF) Act”, which sought to “justly transition away from fossil fuel sources of energy to 100% clean energy by 2035, and for other purposes.”

In 2018, Gabbard introduced the “Securing America’s Election Act”, a bill that would require all districts to use paper ballots, which would yield an auditable paper trail in the event of a recount. Common Cause, a nonpartisan watchdog group, has endorsed the bill.

Fourth term (116th Congress)

Gabbard was reelected in November 2018, defeating Republican nominee Brian Evans by 153,271 to 44,850 votes (77.4%–22.6%).

In September 2018, Gabbard and Representative Walter Jones (R-N.C.) co-sponsored the No More Presidential Wars Act, an effort to “reclaim the responsibility Congress has to be the body that declares war, to end these presidential wars that are being fought without the authorization of Congress.”

In March 2019, Attorney General William Barr asserted in his summary of the Mueller Report that the Special Counsel investigation had failed to find that members of Trump’s 2016 campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government. In response, Gabbard commented that “finding the president of the United States not guilty of conspiring with a foreign power to interfere with our elections is a good thing for America.” She subsequently reintroduced her election security bill, arguing that it would make foreign interference less likely in 2020.

On October 25, 2019, Gabbard announced that she would not seek reelection to the House in 2020, citing her presidential campaign. Hawaii State Senator Kai Kahele had been challenging her for the congressional seat. Kahele and the co-chair of his campaign, former Hawaii governor Neil Abercrombie, criticized her for missing votes while campaigning for president—especially the vote on Syria; however, her absences were similar to other members of Congress running for president.

In October 2020, Tulsi Gabbard and Matt Gaetz introduced a bill calling for the United States to drop criminal charges against Edward Snowden. She introduced a similar bill, with Kentucky Republican Congressman Thomas Massie, aimed at ensuring the release of Julian Assange from prison in Great Britain where he was being held pending resolution of extradition proceedings to the United States.

Committee assignments

• Committee on Homeland Security (2013–2014)
  • Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security
• Committee on Armed Services (2013–2021)
  • Subcommittee on Readiness
  • Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities
• Committee on Foreign Affairs (2013–2019)
  • Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific
  • Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa
• Committee on Financial Services (2019–2021)
  • Subcommittee on National Security, International Development and Monetary Policy
  • Subcommittee on Diversity and Inclusion

Caucus membership

• Congressional Progressive Caucus
• Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus
• Congressional NextGen 9-1-1 Caucus
• Medicare for All Caucus
• U.S.-Japan Caucus

Democratic National Committee

On January 22, 2013, Gabbard was unanimously elected to a four-year term as a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. In September 2015, she criticized chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s decision to hold only six debates during the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries, compared with 26 in 2008 and 15 in 2004, and to exclude any candidate who participated in a non-DNC sanctioned debate from all future DNC-sanctioned debates. Gabbard released a statement about the debate controversy in a Facebook post in 2015.

Following her public criticisms of the debate process, Gabbard was reported to have been either “disinvited” or asked to “consider not coming” to the October 13, 2015 Democratic debate in Las Vegas. In an interview with The New York Times, she spoke of an unhealthy atmosphere, saying, “no one told me I would be relinquishing my freedom of speech and checking it at the door” in taking the job. Gabbard privately wrote to Wasserman Schultz, accusing her of violating the DNC’s duty of neutrality by favoring Hillary Clinton. This letter later became public in leaked emails published by WikiLeaks.

Gabbard resigned as DNC vice chair on February 28, 2016, in order to endorse Senator Bernie Sanders for the nomination for President of the United States. On that same day, she appeared on Meet the Press and discussed her views on why she was stepping down. She was the first congresswoman to endorse Sanders, and later gave the nominating speech putting his name forward at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

In July 2016, Gabbard launched a petition to end the Democratic Party’s process of appointing superdelegates in the nomination process. She endorsed Keith Ellison for DNC chair in the 2017 chairmanship elections.

Gabbard was assigned as Bernie Sanders’s running mate in California for any write-in votes for him. Shortly after the election, she was mentioned as a possible presidential candidate for 2020. In the 2016 United States presidential election, a Minnesota elector voted for Gabbard for vice president, but had that vote invalidated and given to Tim Kaine.

2020 presidential campaign

In February 2019, Gabbard officially launched her 2020 presidential campaign. Gabbard was the first female combat veteran to run for president. CNN described her foreign policy platform as anti-interventionist and her economic platform as populist.

Gabbard was the most frequently Googled candidate after the first, second, and fourth 2020 Democratic debates.

Gabbard did not meet the polling threshold for the third presidential debate, prompting her to criticize the DNC’s qualification criteria as not transparent. She did qualify for the fourth debate in Ohio in October 2019, but accused the media and the Democratic party of “rigging” the 2020 election, and briefly threatened to boycott the debate before deciding to participate.

In July 2019, Gabbard was the only 2020 presidential candidate to visit Puerto Rico and join protests urging Governor Ricardo Rosselló to resign.

In October 2019, false and later corrected stories claimed that former Secretary of State and 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said that Russia was “grooming” a female Democrat to run as a third-party candidate, who would help President Donald Trump win reelection via a spoiler effect. The media understood Clinton to be referring to Gabbard, which Nick Merril, a Clinton spokesperson, seemed to confirm to CNN by saying: “If the nesting doll fits”; however, Gabbard repeatedly said she would not run as a third-party candidate in 2020 and did not do so. Gabbard was defended by a number of fellow 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, who rejected Clinton’s suggestion that Gabbard was a Russian asset. Trump also defended Gabbard. Gabbard filed a defamation lawsuit against Clinton in January 2020, but dropped it five months later. To represent her in her lawsuit against Clinton, Gabbard retained two attorneys with the Los Angeles law firm Pierce Bainbridge Beck Price & Hecht and Davidoff Hutcher & Citron which, during the Mueller probe into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, also had represented George Papadopoulos and Rudy Giuliani.

On March 3, 2020, Gabbard, who is of Samoan descent and 26% Southeast Asian earned two delegates in American Samoa, making her the second woman of color (after Shirley Chisholm) and the first Asian-American and Pacific-Islander presidential candidate to earn primary delegates. She was also the only non-white Democratic party candidate to earn delegates in the 2020 election cycle.

On March 19, 2020, Gabbard dropped out of the 2020 election and endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden.

Gabbard was the only candidate with primary delegates to not be invited to the 2020 Democratic National Convention.

Post-presidential primary activities

In May 2020, Gabbard gave her sole 2020 down-ballot endorsement to Democratic candidate Isaac Wilson, who was running for election to the 63rd district of the South Carolina House of Representatives against incumbent Republican Rep. Jay Jordan. Wilson later lost in the general election, earning 35.3% to Jordan’s 64.7%.

In June 2020, Gabbard donated about $4,400 to Direct Relief and the Semper Fi & America’s Fund, fundraised using proceeds from sales of excess merchandise in April and May. As Gabbard had already suspended her campaign back in March, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) sent a letter notifying that the fundraising efforts were not permitted and that her campaign ought to refund all primary election contributions made after her campaign suspension.

In July 2020, the family of Vanessa Guillén, a U.S. Army soldier and victim of military sexual harassment who was found murdered after previously being reported missing, and their attorney Natalie Khawam met with Gabbard. She later spoke at their July 1 news conference, where she said that as a fellow service member in the U.S. Army, she was “stand here for Vanessa”, “for her family”, and “for every service member who has experienced sexual harassment or assault and did not feel safe reporting it out of fear of retaliation”.

In August 2020, Gabbard was a panelist on “Electability” during The 19th Represents Virtual Summit on the same day as Hillary Clinton but on a different panel. She spoke on the pre-recording, albeit not in the live recording made after Kamala Harris was announced as Joe Biden’s running mate.

Later that same month, Gabbard and Dr. Scott Miscovich held a press conference lauding Dr. Jennifer Smith, the state’s epidemiological specialist who blew the whistle regarding the Hawaii Department of Health’s lack of contact tracers to deal with the COVID-19 crisis. Gabbard called for State Health Director Bruce Anderson and state epidemiologist Sarah Park to step down and said Hawaii Governor David Ige is partly to blame. In the aftermath, Anderson retired from his position, whereas Park was later replaced and put on leave. However, Smith was also put on paid leave and Gabbard responded, saying that the action “further erodes the public trust” and that it “sends a dangerously chilling message to others in our government who are doing the right thing, that they better toe the line or they will be punished”. On November 2, 2020, Smith returned back to work from her paid leave. On February 1, 2021, Park left the Hawaii Department of Health.

Gabbard was also a presenter at iHeartRadio Honolulu’s virtual festival, Island Music Awards, where she announced the winner of the “Female Artist of the Year” award.

In September 2020, Gabbard filed paperwork with the FEC to change her presidential campaign committee, Tulsi Now, into Tulsi Aloha, a leadership PAC, as well as a legal expense trust fund to pay off debts from the lawsuit against Clinton. Later that same month, she weighed into the controversy surrounding the Netflix film Cuties, alleging that Netflix was “complicit” in “help fuel the child sex trafficking trade”.

In December 2020, Gabbard endorsed, and her Tulsi Aloha PAC donated $2,800 to Nina Turner for the 2021 special election for Ohio’s 11th congressional district.

Post-congressional career

In January 2021, Gabbard launched her own podcast: This is Tulsi Gabbard. She has also made several appearances on Fox News programs since leaving Congress, such as Tucker Carlson Tonight and The Ingraham Angle, where she criticized such figures as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, calling the latter a “domestic terrorist” for what she deemed as his attempt to “undermin our constitution by trying to take away our civil liberties and rights” in the aftermath of the 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol.

Political positions

Gabbard criticizes what she describes as a push by the “neoliberal/neoconservative war machine” for U.S. involvement in “counterproductive, wasteful foreign wars”, saying they have not made the United States any safer and have started a New Cold War and nuclear arms race. She has said that the money spent on war should be redirected to serve health care, infrastructure, and other domestic priorities. Nevertheless, she describes herself as both a hawk and a dove.

Gabbard’s domestic policy platform in her 2020 presidential campaign was economically and socially progressive.

Drug policy and criminal justice reform

Gabbard has been outspoken against a “broken criminal justice system” that puts “people in prison for smoking marijuana” while allowing pharmaceutical corporations responsible for “opioid-related deaths of thousands to walk away scot-free with their coffers full”. Gabbard has said that as president she would “end the failed war on drugs, legalize marijuana, end cash bail, and ban private prisons”. Bills she has introduced include the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act and the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act.

In June 2020, Gabbard introduced an amendment to the House version of the 2021 NDAA to allow members of Armed Services to use products containing CBD and other hemp derivatives. It was approved 336 to 71 as a package, although House leaders did not fight for its inclusion in the final bill.

In January 2020, Gabbard called for legalizing and regulating all drugs, citing Portugal’s model for drug decriminalization, after having previously supported decriminalizing all drug possession in October 2019. Gabbard allegedly planned on introducing legislation to decriminalize drug possession at the federal level, until the COVID-19 pandemic came.

Environment

Gabbard protested the construction of the final leg of the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016.

Gabbard successfully passed an amendment to the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act that would require the Department of Energy to reexamine the safety of the Runit Dome, a leaking Cold War era nuclear waste site in the Marshall Islands. She later called for “fresh eyes” to ensure a more independent assessment of the waste site’s safety.

Gabbard has spoken in favor of a Green New Deal but expressed concerns about vagueness in some proposed versions of the legislation and its inclusion of nuclear energy. She advocates her own “Off Fossil Fuels for a Better Future Act” (“OFF Act”) as legislation to transition the United States to renewable energy.

Foreign affairs

On January 18, 2017, Gabbard went on a one-week “fact-finding mission” to Syria and Lebanon, during which Gabbard met various political and religious leaders from Syria and Lebanon—as well as regular citizens from both sides of the war—and also had two unplanned meetings with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. In April 2017, Gabbard expressed skepticism about claims that Assad used chemical weapons against civilians in Khan Shaykhun, and which were followed by a military attack against Syria by the United States. Gabbard said, “a successful prosecution of Assad (at the International Criminal Court) w require collection of evidence from the scene of the incident”, and that she “support the United Nations’ efforts in this regard”. In a 2018 interview with The Nation, Gabbard said the United States had “been waging a regime change war in Syria since 2011”. Gabbard has called Assad “… a brutal dictator. Just like Saddam Hussein”.

Gabbard also criticized the Obama administration, in more than 20 appearances on the Fox News network between 2013 and 2017, for “refusing” to say that the “real enemy” of the United States is “radical Islam” or “Islamic extremism.”

On December 20, 2019, the Stop Arming Terrorists Act that she introduced in 2017 became law as part of National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020, § 1228 to prohibit the Department of Defense from “knowingly providing weapons or any other form of support to Al Qaeda” or other terrorist groups or any individual or group affiliated with any such organization.

Gabbard was a five-year “term member” of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). When asked about her involvement in it, she said that while many in CFR did not share her worldview, “If we only sit in rooms with people who we agree with, then we won’t be able to bring about the kind of change that we need to see.”

Gabbard criticized the U.S. military’s 2020 Baghdad International Airport airstrike (which killed high-level Iranian General Qasem Soleimani) as an act of war by President Trump and a violation of the U.S. Constitution, arguing that the president did not have congressional authorization for this act.

In 2017, Gabbard was blacklisted by Azerbaijan for taking part in a visit to Armenia and a disputed, breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is populated and governed by ethnic Armenians. In October 2020, she accused Turkey, a NATO ally, of encouraging and inciting the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, and co-signed a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that read: “We write to express our deep concern with Azerbaijan’s renewed aggression against Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) and the rising possibility of a wider conflict with Armenia.” Gabbard stated that the United States “must urge Azerbaijan to immediately end their attacks, and Turkey to cease its involvement both directly through the use of its armed forces, and indirectly by sending Al-Qaeda associated proxies to wipe out Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenian population—a tactic Turkey used against Syrian Kurds.” Gabbard has called on the U.S. Senate and President Donald Trump to officially recognize the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 as a genocide.

Healthcare and GMO labeling

Gabbard supports a national healthcare insurance program that covers uninsured, as well as under-insured people, and allows supplemental but not duplicative private insurance. She has since advocated for a two-tier universal health care plan that she calls “Single Payer Plus”, loosely modeled after Australia’s system and allowing for both supplementary and duplicative private insurance.

Gabbard has previously pushed to reinstate Medicaid eligibility for people from the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau who are working and living in the United States. She has called for addressing the national nursing shortage and supports clear GMO labeling, voting in 2016 against a GMO-labeling bill she said was too weak.

First impeachment of Donald Trump

Gabbard voted “present” when the House of Representatives voted to impeach President Trump in December 2019. In two video messages and a press release, she cited The Federalist Papers essay No. 65, and described her vote as a protest against “a political zero-sum game”. Gabbard introduced H. Res. 766, which would censure Trump for several of his foreign policy decisions and “send a strong message to this president and future presidents that their abuses of power will not go unchecked, while leaving the question of removing Trump from office to the voters to decide”. A week later, Gabbard said she had serious concerns that the impeachment would increase the likelihood that her party would lose the presidential election and its majority in the House of Representatives.

LGBT issues

In 1998, Gabbard supported her father’s successful campaign to amend the Constitution of Hawaii to give lawmakers the power to limit marriage to opposite-sex couples. The “Alliance for Traditional Marriage” spent more than $100,000 opposing same-sex marriage. In her campaign for the Hawaii legislature in 2002, Gabbard emphasized her role in getting a constitutional amendment passed that made same-sex marriage illegal in Hawaii, and vowed to “bring that attitude of public service to the legislature.” Until 2004 she voted and lobbied against same-sex marriage in Hawaii. She publicly apologized for that position in 2012. She apologized again after launching her presidential campaign in 2019.

As a Hawaii state legislator in 2004, Gabbard argued against civil unions, saying: “To try to act as if there is a difference between ‘civil unions’ and same-sex marriage is dishonest, cowardly, and extremely disrespectful to the people of Hawaii who have already made overwhelmingly clear our position on this issue. … As Democrats, we should be representing the views of the people, not a small number of homosexual extremists.” She opposed Hawaii House Bill 1024, which would have established legal parity between same-sex couples in civil unions and married straight couples, and led a protest against the bill outside the room where the House Judiciary Committee held the hearing. The same year, she opposed research on students’ sexuality and asserted that existing harassment figures indicate that Hawaii’s schools were “not rampant with anti-gay harassment”.

In 2012, Gabbard apologized for her “anti-gay advocacy” and said she would “fight for the repeal” of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). In June 2013, she was an initial cosponsor of the legislation to repeal DOMA. After launching her presidential campaign in 2019, she apologized again and said that her views had been changed by her experience in the military “with LGBTQ service members, both here at home and while deployed”. She has been a member of the House LGBT Equality Caucus during her first, third, and fourth terms in Congress, and received a 100% rating in her third term (improving from 88% and 92% in her previous two terms) for pro-LGBT legislation from the Human Rights Campaign, a group that advocates for LGBT rights.

On December 10, 2020, Gabbard and Republican U.S. Representative Markwayne Mullin introduced a bill titled the “Protect Women’s Sports Act” that would seek to define Title IX protections on the basis of an individual’s biological sex, making it a violation for institutions that receive federal funding to “permit a person whose biological sex at birth is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls.” If passed, this bill would effectively ban many trans athletes from participating in these programs. Gabbard received condemnation from LGBT organizations and activists after introducing the bill, including the Human Rights Campaign saying: “Gabbard has lost all credibility as an ally.“

Personal life

Gabbard is vegan and, as a Hindu, follows Gaudiya Vaishnavism. She describes herself as a karma yogi. She values the Bhagavad Gita as a spiritual guide and took the oath of office in 2013 using her personal copy, which she gave to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the latter’s visit to the USA the following year in 2014.

In 2002, she married Eduardo Tamayo. They divorced in 2006, citing “the stresses war places on military spouses and families” as a reason for their divorce.

In 2015, Gabbard married freelance cinematographer and editor Abraham Williams, the son of her Honolulu office manager, in a traditional Vedic wedding ceremony, wearing blue silk.

Awards and honors

On November 25, 2013, Gabbard received the John F. Kennedy New Frontier Award at a ceremony at the Institute of Politics at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government for her efforts on behalf of veterans.

On March 26, 2014, Elle magazine honored Gabbard, with others, at the Italian Embassy in the United States during its annual “Women in Washington Power List.”

On February 26, 2015, Gabbard received the National Association of Counties County Alumni Award for her “steadfast commitment to the nation’s counties”.

On July 15, 2015, Gabbard received the Friend of the National Parks Award from the National Parks Conservation Association.

On October 14, 2016, Gabbard received the 2016 Doshi Family Bridgebuilder Award from Bellarmine University for “buil bridges between faiths and cultures in her public service leadership”.

On September 30, 2018, Gabbard received the Ho’ola Na Pua Advocacy Award for “her dedication to serving and empowering human trafficking survivors in Hawaii” at their annual Pearl Gala.

On October 16, 2018, Gabbard was honored as Hawai’i Pacific University’s 2018 Paul T. C. Loo Distinguished Alumni.

On July 13, 2019, the American Hellenic Council of California honored Gabbard and two other Philhellenes (and Gabbard received their Pericles Award) for “their service to Hellenism and their excellence in their respective fields of expertise”.

Published works