The new and improved Kirsten Gillibrand

By Michael J.W. Stickings

What a difference a few years can make.

Back in 2009, when then-New York Gov. David Paterson named then-Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand to fill Hillary's vacated spot in the Senate, I said it was "a horrible, horrible pick": 

Earlier, I suggested that Gillibrand, who represents a pro-Bush district, is "almost a Republican." Almost? I'd say she pretty much is, what with a 100% approval rating from the NRA, support for the Iraq War, and, as she herself put it, "one of the most conservative" voting records in the state, including voting for the FISA bill that included telecom immunity and to lift the ban on the possession of semi-automatic weapons in D.C. Her father was close to former Republican Governor George Pataki. She even once interned for former Senator Al D'Amato, a conservative and hyper-partisan Republican.

Was that wrong? No. But has Senator Gillibrand emerged as something altogether different? Yes.

The fact is, Gillibrand represented a fairly conservative district in upstate New York. (Obama won it decisively in 2008 and 2012, but Bush won it by fairly large margins in 2000 and 2004.) And so her views very much lined up with what she had to do to succeed there. That's not to say she was lying about herself. While she was strong on civil liberties and a proponent of same-sex marriage (and gays in the military), there is no doubt that she was genuinely a conservative Democrat, and that's why many of us were concerned when she was appointed to the Senate.

But give her credit. She's adapted to her role as New York's junior senator and broadened her views, or at least her positions, to reflect a significantly more progressive outlook.

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