Roxanne Conlin (D-Iowa, U.S. Senate)

Roxanne Conlin is running for U.S. Senate from Iowa. She is one of four Democrats who will compete in the June 8 primary. If she wins her primary, she would then challenge incumbent Republican Chuck Grassley, giving Conlin the chance to become the first woman elected to Congress from the state of Iowa.

Conlin served as an assistant attorney general for Iowa, where she was head of the civil rights section, and wrote the first laws of their kind to protect rape victims in Iowa. She then continued to take a stance against violent crime as the U.S. attorney general for the Southern District of Iowa. She was one of the first two women to ever serve as a U.S. attorney and weathered many attempts to replace her. She was also the founder and president of the Iowa Women's Political Caucus, has served as a president of NOW Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and in 1992 was the first woman president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America.

While owning her own law firm for the past 25 years, she has set a high standard for work-life practices, particularly by offering on-site daycare for her employees. Her firm, Roxanne Conlin & Associates, was recently cited by a national magazine as one of the best firms to work for because of its family-friendly practices. Hers was also one of the first firms in the nation, and the first in Iowa, to take on a sexual harassment case-- a civil lawsuit against a third party who was responsible for creating a dangerous environment.

Conlin also stood up for LGBT rights while an attorney in Iowa. She has supported LGBT equality since 1977 when she began speaking out about equal employment opportunities.

Conlin has her own personal health care story. As a child, she contracted an ear infection that left her partially deaf in that ear because her parents could not afford antibiotics without health care coverage. Conlin favors a health care plan that does not discriminate based on pre-existing conditions, gender or age and covers abortion services.

With each new milestone -- serving as U.S. attorney in Iowa, earning the Democratic nomination for governor of Iowa, being elected as the first woman president of the American Association of Justice, and being selected as one of the first women in the Inner Circle of Advocates -- Conlin leaves behind a trail of shattered glass.

For more information please visit her campaign site.

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