A Conversation With Congresswoman, Mom, Nonprofit Founder & Author Marjorie Margolies

The Hon. Marjorie Margolies is the former Congresswoman from the 13th district of Pennsylvania. She's a 25 year veteran of NBC news and the Founder and President of Women's Campaign International (WCI). She's a professor of political science at UPenn and the author of five books, the mother of 11 and the grandmother of 21. Her son is married to Chelsea Clinton. Her new book, And How Are The Children? (MacKenzie-Wyatt, January 2022), is a wonderful inside look at the world of an Emmy-award winning broadcaster who adopts hard-to-place refugees from Vietnam and Korea, blends them into a joyful, chaotic household consisting of four stepdaughters and two biological sons and then adds three more Vietnamese boys plus various and assorted family members who stay for 25 years. Marjorie was the first single woman to adopt from abroad! Hillary Clinton wrote the foreword to this rich, inspiring book. Marjorie, who was married to Congressman Ed Mezvinsky while continuing her own challenging work as an NBC correspondent, somehow made juggling eleven kids and a super-sized career seem effortless. One of Marjorie's adopted Vietnamese children, Vu, now an anesthesiologist, says, "What would have happened to me if my folder had been on a different desk that day."

Marjorie runs WCI, which trains and empowers women around the globe to transform their communities and to take a seat at the table in political leadership, economic development, civil society and conflict transformation. She has traveled to more than 50 countries. WCI has had phenomenal success, including doubling the number of women in parliaments around the world.

She is currently on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, having just completed teaching a course with David Eisenhower on the "First Hundred Days of the Biden Administration." In addition, she has lectured at universities throughout the country on topics like "Dealing with the Media" and "Women Leaders in Emerging Democracies," analyzing the ways in which politics and the media interact.

When she was elected to represent the state of Pennsylvania in the House of Representatives, she was the first woman ever elected to Congress from Pennsylvania in her own right. She was defeated because she became the main target of Republicans after she cast the deciding vote to approve President Clinton's budget.