Maxine Waters

Maxine Moore Waters (née Carr; born August 15, 1938) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for CA's 43rd congressional district since 1991.

Waters was born in 1938 in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Remus Carr and Velma Lee (née Moore).

The fifth of 13 children, she was raised by her single mother after her father left the family when Maxine was two.

She graduated from Vashon High School in St. Louis before moving with her family to Los Angeles in 1961.

She worked in a garment factory and as a telephone operator before being hired as an assistant teacher with the Head Start program in Watts in 1966.

Waters later enrolled at Los Angeles State College (now California State University, Los Angeles), where she received a bachelor's degree in sociology in 1971.

In 1973, Waters went to work as chief deputy to City Councilman David S. Cunningham, Jr. She was elected to the California State Assembly in 1976.

In the Assembly, she worked for the divestment of state pension funds from any businesses active in South Africa, a country then operating under the policy of apartheid, and helped pass legislation within the guidelines of the divestment campaign's Sullivan Principles.

She ascended to the position of Democratic Caucus Chair for the Assembly.

Before becoming a U.S. representative, Waters served seven terms in the California State Assembly, to which she was first elected in 1976.

As an assemblywoman, she advocated divestment from South Africa's apartheid regime.

In Congress, she was an outspoken opponent of the Iraq War and has sharply criticized Presidents George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump.

Upon the retirement of Augustus F. Hawkins in 1990, Waters was elected to the United States House of Representatives for California's 29th congressional district with over 79% of the vote.

The district, numbered as the 29th district from 1991 to 1993 and as the 35th district from 1993 to 2013, includes much of southern Los Angeles, as well as portions of Gardena, Inglewood and Torrance.

She has been reelected consistently from this district, renumbered as the 35th district in 1992 and as the 43rd in 2012, with at least 70% of the vote.

Waters has represented large parts of south-central Los Angeles and the Los Angeles coastal communities of Westchester and Playa Del Rey, as well as the cities of Torrance, Gardena, Hawthorne, Inglewood and Lawndale.

On July 29, 1994, Waters came to public attention when she repeatedly interrupted a speech by Representative Peter King.

The presiding officer, Carrie Meek, classed her behavior as "unruly and turbulent", and threatened to have the Sergeant at Arms present her with the Mace of the House of Representatives (the equivalent of a formal warning to desist).

, this is the most recent instance of the mace being employed for a disciplinary purpose.

Waters was eventually suspended from the House for the rest of the day.

The conflict with King stemmed from the previous day, when they had both been present at a House Banking Committee hearing on the Whitewater controversy.

Waters felt King's questioning of Maggie Williams (Hillary Clinton's chief of staff) was too harsh, and they subsequently exchanged hostile words.

She is the most senior of the 13 black women serving in Congress, and chaired the Congressional Black Caucus from 1997 to 1999.

She is the second-most senior member of the California congressional delegation, after Nancy Pelosi.

Waters chaired the Congressional Black Caucus from 1997 to 1998.

In 2005, she testified at the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce hearings on "Enforcement of Federal Anti-Fraud Laws in For-Profit Education", highlighting the American College of Medical Technology as a "problem school" in her district.

In 2006, she was involved in the debate over King Drew Medical Center.

She criticized media coverage of the hospital and asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to deny a waiver of the cross ownership ban, and hence license renewal for KTLA-TV, a station the Los Angeles Times owned.

She said, "The Los Angeles Times has had an inordinate effect on public opinion and has used it to harm the local community in specific instances."

She requested that the FCC force the paper to either sell its station or risk losing that station's broadcast rights.

According to Broadcasting & Cable, the challenges raised "the specter of costly legal battles to defend station holdings... At a minimum, defending against one would cost tens of thousands of dollars in lawyers' fees and probably delay license renewal about three months".

Waters's petition was unsuccessful.

As a Democratic representative in Congress, Waters was a superdelegate to the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

She endorsed Democratic U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton for the party's nomination in late January 2008, granting Clinton nationally recognized support that some suggested would "make big waves."

Waters later switched her endorsement to U.S. Senator Barack Obama when his lead in the pledged delegate count became insurmountable on the final day of primary voting.

In 2009 Waters had a confrontation with Representative Dave Obey over an earmark in the United States House Committee on Appropriations.

The funding request was for a public school employment training center in Los Angeles that was named after her.

A member of the Democratic Party, Waters is in her 17th House term.

Waters was included in Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2018.

She chaired the House Financial Services Committee from 2019 to 2023 and has been the ranking member since 2023.