House Career
In 1994, Congressman Alan Wheat ran for U.S. Senate, leaving an open seat. McCarthy won a crowded six-way primary, and then defeated Republican Ron Freeman with 56 percent of the vote. She was easily reelected four more times. McCarthy served on the Energy and Commerce committee (subcommittees: Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection, Energy and Air Quality, Telecommunications and Internet and Environment and Hazardous Materials) and the Select Committee on Homeland Security as the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence and Counterterrorism subcommittee.
McCarthy announced in 2003 that she wouldn't run for a sixth term in 2004 after revealing that she suffered from alcoholism. A widely reported incident in which an intoxicated McCarthy fell down inside a House office building forced her to admit her problem and seek treatment.
Selected honors include the Missouri Citizens for the Arts 2005 Advocacy Award and the Business and Professional Women of the USA's Woman of the Year award.
Read more about this topic: Karen McCarthy
Famous quotes containing the words house and/or career:
“Within the memory of many of my townsmen the road near which my house stands resounded with the laugh and gossip of inhabitants, and the woods which border it were notched and dotted here and there with their little gardens and dwellings, though it was then much more shut in by the forest than now.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Work-family conflicts—the trade-offs of your money or your life, your job or your child—would not be forced upon women with such sanguine disregard if men experienced the same career stalls caused by the-buck-stops-here responsibility for children.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)