Elise proudly represents New York’s 21st District in the House of Representatives where she is a Member of both the Armed Services Committee and the Committee on Education and the Workforce. On the House Armed Services Committee, Elise serves as Vice-Chair for the Subcommittee on Readiness. On the Committee on Education and the Workforce, she serves on the Subcommittees on Workforce Protections and Higher Education and Workforce Training. Elise was elected by her freshmen peers in the 114th Congress to serve as the Freshman Representative to the Policy Committee where she is the Chair of the Millennial Task Force. Elise is proudly the youngest woman ever elected to Congress in United States history.
During her first term, Elise has:
- Sponsored the Be Open Act – legislation that passed the House and was signed into law by the President. It is the largest fix to ObamaCare in the 114th Congress and repealed the onerous auto-enrollment mandate.
- Sponsored the Support our Military Caregivers Act – bipartisan legislation that would reform the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Family Caregiver Program to help better support family members caring for seriously wounded veterans.
- Introduced the Flexible Pell Grant for 21st Century Students Act – bipartisan legislation born out of her higher education roundtables that works to help students complete their post-secondary degrees at a lower cost and in a more efficient manner.
- Helped pass the Bipartisan Budget Act – the two year budget agreement that lifted devastating sequester cuts and put an end to governing crisis-to-crisis.
- Helped the House pass the Promoting Job Creation and Reducing Small Business Burdens Act – bipartisan legislation that would reduce burdensome federal regulations.
- Brought a commitment to transparency to Congress, posting her legislative work, legislative votes, and public schedule to her website and Facebook page.
From 2006 – 2009, Elise served in the West Wing of the White House as part of President George W. Bush’s Domestic Policy Council Staff and in the Chief of Staff’s office where she assisted in overseeing the policy development process on all economic and domestic policy issues.
Later, Elise served as Director of Vice Presidential Debate Prep to now-Speaker Paul Ryan where she oversaw all debate preparations for the Republican Vice Presidential nominee. She served as Director of Communications for the Foreign Policy Initiative, which launched Defending Defense, a coalition of think tanks warning of the dangers of the sequester.
Prior to winning her election to Congress overwhelmingly by over 20 points, Elise worked at her family’s small business, Premium Plywood Products, that was founded in Upstate New York over twenty years ago. Growing up in her family’s small business, she learned, lived and understands the values of hard work, perseverance, challenges, and risk that go along with building, operating and growing small businesses that provide jobs in today’s Upstate economy. She resides in Willsboro, New York.
Elise’s areas of policy focus include:
- Creating jobs and economic opportunities for the hard working families and small businesses of the North Country.
- Reducing onerous tax and regulatory burdens facing small businesses.
- Protecting Fort Drum and advocating on behalf of our veterans and military families.
- Supporting our North Country farmers, the backbone of our Upstate communities.
- Repealing Obamacare and replacing it with common sense solutions to lower health care costs and improve quality and access.
- Working on solutions for our North Country families that make education more affordable, accessible and of a higher quality.
- Fighting for fiscal responsibility by balancing the budget and protecting and preserving Social Security and Medicare.
Congresswoman Elise M. Stefanik was born and raised in Upstate New York where she attended and graduated from Albany Academy for Girls, the oldest continuous all girls’ school in the country. As the first member of her immediate family to graduate from college, Elise graduated with Honors from Harvard University. She currently serves on the Senior Advisory Committee of Harvard’s Institute of Politics, the largest political undergraduate organization in the country.