Gabby Giffords Biography- American retired politician and gun control advocate Gabrielle Dee Giffords was born on June 8, 1970. From January 2007 until January 2012, she represented Arizona’s 8th congressional district as a member of the US House of Representatives. She resigned in January 2012 due to a serious brain damage she sustained during an attempted assassination. She was the third female elected to the U.S. Congress in Arizona history and a member of the Democratic Party. Giffords was born and reared in Tucson, Arizona, and she holds degrees from Cornell University and Scripps College. She moved to New York City at first to work for Price Waterhouse in regional economic development, but she later moved back to Arizona to take up her position as CEO of El Campo Tire Warehouses, a family-run company that she had founded.
Gabby Giffords Biography 2025
During her time in Congress, Giffords was viewed as a moderate Democrat. She sided with the Blue Dog Coalition of Democrats who were financially conservative, but she also backed several of President Barack Obama’s economic initiatives. Her congressional district borders Mexico, therefore she was a strong supporter of immigration reform, although she was against a particularly tough Arizona law that was passed in 2010 that targeted illegal immigrants. Giffords also supported bills pertaining to renewable energy and chaired the House subcommittee on space and aeronautics from 2009 to 2011. (In 2007, she wed astronaut Mark Kelly.) Giffords occasionally encountered strong political resistance since she was a Democrat in a state with a Republican majority. Following her 2010 vote in favor of the health care measure that became the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Gabby Giffords Biography 2025 Details
| Born |
Gabrielle Dee Giffords
June 8, 1970 (age 54)
Tucson, Arizona, U.S. |
| Political party |
Democratic (since 2000) |
Other political
affiliations |
Republican (1988–2000) |
| Spouse |
|
| Relatives |
Gwyneth Paltrow, Jake Paltrow (second cousins) |
| Education |
Scripps College (BA)
Cornell University (MRP) |
| Awards |
Presidential Medal of Freedom (2022) |
| Net Worth |
$20 million |
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Gabby Giffords
Gabrielle Dee Giffords is an American retired politician and gun control activist. She served as a member of the United States House of Representatives representing Arizona’s 8th congressional district .
Born: 8 June 1970 (age 54 years), Tucson, Arizona, United States
Spouse: Mark Kelly (m. 2007)
Party: Democratic Party
Organization founded: Americans for Responsible Solutions
Awards: Glamour Award for Couple of the Year, Glamour Award for The Undaunted
Previous offices: Representative, AZ 8th District (2007–2012), Arizona State Representative (2001–2003)
Early life and education
Born on June 8, 1970, Gabrielle Dee Giffords was raised in Tucson, Arizona. Her parents were Spencer J. Giffords and Gloria Kay Fraser. Her father was Jewish and her mother was a Christian Scientist, therefore she grew up in a mixed-religion home. In order to avoid anti-Semitism in the US, her paternal grandfather, Jewish immigrant Akiba Hornstein, changed his name to Giffords. He was born in Lithuania. Giffords is a second cousin of filmmaker Jake Paltrow and actress Gwyneth Paltrow through her father.
Giffords is a graduate of University High School in Tucson. She was a Girl Scout in the past. 1993 saw her graduate from Scripps College in California with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology and Latin American History. She also lived in Chihuahua, Mexico, for a year as a Fulbright Scholar. In 1996, she went back to graduate school and graduated from Cornell University with a master’s degree in regional planning. Her research was centered on Mexican-American interactions.
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Arizona legislature
In 2000, Giffords changed her political party to the Democratic Party, and in 2001, she was elected to the Arizona House of Representatives. In the fall of 2002, she was elected to the Arizona Senate, becoming the body’s youngest elected woman at the time. She was re-elected in 2004 after taking office in January 2003. On December 1, 2005, she announced her resignation from the Arizona Senate to focus on her congressional campaign. Upon seeing that “the 2004 election took its toll on our bipartisan coalition” in early 2005, Giffords noted that “a number of significant problems will receive far less attention than they deserve.” She emphasized that among them were the inward migration, rapid growth, and lack of well-paying jobs or critical infrastructure that threatened the.
The environment and the “strain education, health care, and transportation” as well as unsolved issues like Students First, Arnold v. Sarn, repayment obligations under Ladewig v. Arizona, the No Child Left Behind mandate, low academic achievement, health care costs, and the requirements of the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System. She added that Arizona was not the only state dealing with these difficulties.
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Attempted assassination
During her first “Congress on Your Corner” event of the year, which provides a public forum for residents to speak with their lawmakers, Giffords was shot in the head on January 8, 2011, outside a Safeway grocery store in Casas Adobes, Arizona, a suburban community northwest of Tucson. A man with a 33-round magazine with his 9mm pistol started firing at the throng as he ran up to them. Six of the 19 victims were killed by the gunman’s bullets. Federal judge John Roll and Christina-Taylor Green, a 9-year-old, were among the deceased. Green’s grandmother was Dallas Green’s general manager and MLB baseball manager. Although not by gunshot, a 20th individual was hurt at the scene. Bystanders held the gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, until he was taken into custody.
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Personal life
On November 10, 2007, Giffords wed Mark Kelly, a NASA astronaut and captain in the USN. Prior to her election as an Arizona U.S. Senator in 2020, Kelly flew the Space Shuttle on the STS-108 and STS-121 missions and served as the mission commander on STS-124 and STS-134. In the past, Giffords served on the Anti-Defamation League’s Arizona regional board. Giffords volunteered her time in Houston, Texas, working to aid disaster victims during the August 2005 deluge of disaster Katrina. In the Tucson Citizen, she wrote about her experience. Reading is Giffords’ passion, and on July 9, 2006, she discussed her love of books on NPR’s Weekend Edition. Both she and Illinois Republican Peter Roskam were featured on NPR’s All Things on a regular basis in 2007.
Political positions
Voting against President Bush’s 2008 Economic Stimulus Act was Giffords. Giffords was one of 60 politicians who opposed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 in the House when it was initially put to a vote. She later changed her vote to yes in the House when it was put to a second vote and supported the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. She supported increasing the debt ceiling in August of 2011. According to Giffords, American students are engaged in a global competition that begins in the classroom. She considers the No Child Left Behind statute to be an unfunded federal requirement, which is why she is against it. She believes that public schools should be more efficient. As a primary goal for public policy, Giffords is a big proponent of renewable energy, especially solar energy.
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What is Gabby Giffords Net Worth 2025?
Gabby Giffords, an American politician and advocate for gun control, had a net worth of $20 million. In 2011, Gabby and Mark’s net worth was $2 million. As of 2019, their combined net worth is estimated to be between $10 and $30 million. Mark’s lucrative career as a public speaker contributed significantly to their wealth, along with earnings from book deals, consulting, and board memberships. Since January 2019, Mark has earned up to $8 million from his various activities, including $1.9 million from 64 paid speeches since January 2018.
