Kathleen McGinty

Early life and education

The ninth of ten children of a retired police officer and a waitress, McGinty was born in Philadelphia and is of Irish Catholic descent.

She grew up in a three bedroom house in Northeast Philadelphia She graduated from St. Hubert Catholic High School for Girls, Saint Joseph’s University in 1985 (with a BS in chemistry), and Columbia Law School in 1988 (with a JD). She earned a Judicial Clerkship appointment to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington upon graduating from Columbia.

Career

After law school, McGinty clerked for a federal judge but did not ultimately take the bar exam or practice law. She won a Congressional Fellowship after crafting a strategy to bring technology jobs back to the United States and became a legislative assistant to Al Gore when he was serving as a U.S. Senator from Tennessee. In 1993, she became a deputy assistant to President Bill Clinton. She chaired the White House Council on Environmental Quality from 1995-98. Katie moved to India in 1999 where she worked at the Tata Energy Research Institute, forging new partnerships between US and Indian clean energy companies to help address climate change, an effort that supported the negotiation of new environmental agreements between the US and India.

In 2003 she was appointed as the Secretary of Pennsylvania‘s Department of Environmental Protection, serving in Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell's administration for over five years. In 2007, as the head of DEP, her agency awarded grants to groups for which her husband consulted. The situation prompted a state Ethics Commission ruling that prohibited department heads from awarding money to any entities that employ a spouse.

In October 2008, McGinty took a board position with NRG Energy, an American energy company. Between 2008-13, McGinty received $1.2 million in cash and stock awards from the company. In 2009, McGinty joined the board of Iberdrola USA, a subsidiary of a Spanish energy company. In 2010, Iberdrola received a $10 million federal stimulus grant through Pennsylvania to build a wind farm. While serving in the administration of Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, she sought to help Iberdrola merge with a New York company, Energy East.

McGinty later became an executive at Weston Solutions, where she oversaw brownfield re-development and green business initiatives.

2014 Pennsylvania gubernatorial campaign

On April 12, 2013, McGinty announced she would be a candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania in 2014. McGinty finished fourth in the primary behind Allyson Schwartz, Rob McCord, and eventual general election winner Tom Wolf, who appointed her his chief of staff. She served in that capacity from January 2015 until July 2015, amid speculation that she was considering running for the United States Senate in the 2016 election.

2016 U.S. Senate campaign

On August 4, 2015, McGinty officially announced her candidacy for the United States Senate in 2016. She was endorsed by EMILY's List, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, and President Barack Obama.

In April 2016, she defeated former U.S. Representative Joe Sestak and Mayor John Fetterman in the Democratic primary. As of June 30, 2016, financial disclosures showed that McGinty's campaign had spent $4,312,688 and raised $6,713,202.

The Senate election between McGinty and incumbent Republican Pat Toomey was among the most expensive Senate races in America. According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, as of October 2016, more than $52 million had been spent on the general and primary election between the two candidates.

In the general election on November 8, 2016, she was defeated by Toomey. McGinty received 47.2% of the vote.

Personal life

McGinty is married to Karl Hausker. They have three daughters and reside in Wayne, Pennsylvania.