Cynthia Lummis

She is descended from German immigrants and her family first came to Wyoming in 1868.

Her father chaired the Laramie County Republican Party and served on the county board of commissioners.

Her brother Del Lummis also chaired the Laramie County Republican Party.

During her tenure in the House, she was the first Wyoming representative to serve on the Agriculture Committee since 1941, chaired the Science Subcommittee on Energy, co-chaired the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues, and was active in the Congressional Western Caucus and Freedom Caucus.

Cynthia Marie Lummis Wiederspahn (born September 10, 1954) is an American attorney and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Wyoming since 2021.

Cynthia Marie Lummis was born on September 10, 1954, in Cheyenne, Wyoming, to Doran Lummis and Enid Bennett.

Lummis attended Cheyenne East High School, and graduated from the University of Wyoming with a Bachelor of Science degree in animal science in 1976 and a Bachelor of Science in biology in 1978.

She worked as a student teacher at Rock River School in 1977.

In 1978, Lummis was elected to the Wyoming House of Representatives at age 24, the youngest woman to serve in the state legislature.

She served in the Wyoming House of Representatives from 1979 to 1983 and from 1985 to 1993, in the Wyoming Senate from 1993 to 1995, and as the Wyoming State Treasurer from 1999 to 2007.

She was reelected in 1980, but chose to not seek reelection in 1982.

On February 28, 1982, Lummis was injured in a car accident while Wiederspahn was driving.

She attended the National Conference of State Legislatures national conference in 1982, alongside Senate President Donald Cundall and Representatives Wiederspahn, Peg Shreve, Scott Ratliff, William A. Cross, and George Salisbury.

In a 1982 roll-call vote in favor of legislation about the treatment of non-resident traffic offenders, a man cast Lummis's vote while she was outside the room.

Lummis changed the vote to a nay after coming back in, and Representative Ken Burns cited this as an example of why electronic voting was needed.

Lummis returned to the state house after winning the 1984 election.

She graduated from the University of Wyoming with a Juris Doctor in 1985, and was on the dean's list.

She filed to run for reelection on June 19, 1986, and was reelected after placing third out of 18 candidates.

She was reelected in the 1988 and 1990 elections.

She chaired Mary Mead's gubernatorial campaign in 1990 and Ray Hunkins's gubernatorial campaign in 2006.

In 1990, when Republican Senator Dan Sullivan resigned from the Wyoming Senate, Senate Majority Leader Diemer True stated that Lummis was qualified to replace Sullivan in the state senate.

But she could not take the position, as she was busy serving as a campaign manager in the gubernatorial election.

She was reapportioned to the 8th district in 1992.

In 1992, Lummis ran for a seat in the Wyoming Senate from the 5th district, defeating Norman P. Feagler for the Republican nomination, and incumbent Democratic Senator Harriet Elizabeth Byrd in the general election.

During the campaign Lummis spent $11,661, making her the fifth-highest spending elected candidate in the 1992 election.

On June 8, 1994, she announced that she would not run for reelection, saying she had other commitments to her family.

Republican nominee Don Lawler was elected to succeed her after defeating Democratic nominee Steve Freudenthal.

During Lummis's tenure in the state house, she chaired the Revenue committee and served on the Judiciary and Agriculture Committees.

During her tenure in the state senate she served on the Judiciary Committee.

After leaving the state legislature, she was appointed to Jim Geringer's gubernatorial transition team, and served as his general counsel until 1997.

Geringer appointed Lummis to serve as interim director of the Office of State Lands and Investments in 1997, after he fired Jim Magagna.

Lummis was elected treasurer of Wyoming in 1998 and reelected without opposition in 2002.

Lummis unsuccessfully sought to be appointed to replace Senator Craig L. Thomas in 2007.

She was elected to succeed Barbara Cubin in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2008 election, defeating Democratic nominee Gary Trauner.

A member of the Republican Party, Lummis served as the U.S representative for Wyoming's at-large congressional district from 2009 to 2017.

She also served on Bob Dole's presidential steering committee in Wyoming and chaired Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign in Wyoming.

She served until her retirement in 2017, and was succeeded by Liz Cheney.

After her tenure in the House, Lummis sought a position in President Donald Trump's cabinet as Secretary of the Interior, but was not appointed.

She was elected to the U.S. Senate in the 2020 election, becoming the first woman to represent Wyoming in the Senate.

She voted to reject the certification of Pennsylvania's electoral votes in the 2020 presidential election, which were narrowly won by Joe Biden.