Dates

• Existence: 1948-

Biography

Bonnie J. Pierce Campbell, an attorney and Democratic Party activist, was born in 1948 in South Plymouth, New York. She was raised on a farm in the Appalachian region of upstate New York, graduating from Norwich High School in 1965. She then began working in Washington, D.C., as part of a federal anti-poverty program for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and United States Senator Edmund Muskie (D-ME). Campbell became a staff member for Senator Harold Hughes (D-IA) in 1969. She moved to Iowa to oversee the offices of Senator John Culver (D-IA) from 1974 through 1980.

In 1982 Campbell earned a B.S., summa cum laude, from Drake University, and in 1985 she earned a J.D. from Drake University Law School. From 1985 until 1991 Campbell practiced law in Des Moines. She served as chair of Iowa's Democratic Party from 1987 until 1991. Campbell was the first woman to serve as Iowa's Attorney General, an elected office she held from 1990 until 1994. Campbell ran unsuccessfully for Governor of Iowa in 1994. Campbell has long been an advocate of legal reform in cases of domestic violence and abuse. On March 21, 1995, President William J. Clinton appointed her Director of the Violence Against Women Office of the United States Department of Justice. Campbell is married to Edward Campbell.

Found in 2 Collections and/or Records: