Teddy Williams, Sr.

From Usgs

Current revision as of 23:37, 12 March 2011

Teddy Williams
House Representative
In Office: 3 January 2011 - 3 January 2013
Preceded by	Robert Cunningham
Succeeded by	Lucian Hughes
Born	14 June 1956 Pittsburgh, PA
Political Party	Democratic
Spouse	Rachel Williams
Religion	Christian

Theodore "Teddy" Williams, Sr. (born June 14, 1956) was House Representative for the fourteenth congressional district of Pennsylvania. He represented the city of Pittsburgh along with the surrounding area, including Munhall and West Mifflin.

Biography

Teddy Williams was born in Pittsburgh in 1956 as the grandson of Irish and German immigrants. He went to public high school, graduating near the top of his class in 1974 and going to the University of Pennsylvania. He studied political science, and graduated from UPenn in 1978. He then applied and was admitted to Harvard Law School, which he graduated cum laude in 1981.

After graduating from Harvard Law School, Williams turned down many lucrative offers at big firms in order to take a job working as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania. He remained close to the community during this time, and prosecuted many cases against high-profile criminals in Pennsylvania including a number of drug dealers, sex traffickers, organized criminals, and white collar criminals.

Personal Life

In 1975, Williams married Rachel Williams, a Jewish doctor working in the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. He has three children, a boy born in 1975, Teddy Williams Jr., a boy born in 1980, Steve Williams, and a girl born in 1983, Rebbecca Williams.

Political career

Early career

Williams continued working as an Assistant United States Attorney until 1996, when he decided to seek state office. He ran and won a race to become state Representative for the 23rd district in Pennsylvania. He ran on a platform calling for broad-based reform that focused on providing sensible tax cuts, a fiscally conservative policy with the Pennsylvania budget, sound environmental protection, and a return of accountability to Harrisburg.

Serving in the Pennsylvania General Assembly until 2002, Williams then decided to run for state Senate in the 23rd district when the seat opened up. He won and served as state Senator until 2010, when he won an election to the House of Representatives in the 14th district.

He served in the House for two years, fighting for the disadvantaged. He then ran for the Pennsylvania Senate Seat against Senator Clay and lost by just over 20,000 votes.

MID Legislature

In 2015, Teddy Williams was elected minority leader of the MID legislature. He gained popularity after reunifying the MID Democratic party firmly on the side of unions and working Americans. He fought to repeal the anti-union laws passed in the previous session of Congress.

In the 2016 elections, he ran as Lt. Governor on the Grace Straka ticket, and won. He resigned in 2018 after his son, Teddy Williams, was elected Governor