Yvonne Brathwaite Burke

Yvonne Brathwaite Burke ( born October 5, 1932 in Los Angeles, California) is a former U.S. politician. Between 1973 and 1979, she represented the state of California in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Career

Perle Yvonne Watson, as her maiden name, attended the public schools of their home. She then studied until 1953 at the University of California at Los Angeles. After a subsequent law studies at the University of Southern California and its 1956 was admitted as a lawyer, she began to work in this profession. In 1972 she married the philanthropist William Burke, called the Los Angeles Marathon to life. Politically, she joined the Democratic Party. Between 1967 and 1972 she sat as a Member in the California State Assembly. In July 1972, she was delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, on the George McGovern was nominated as a presidential candidate.

In the congressional elections of 1972, Burke was on the 37th electoral district of California in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington DC chosen, where they became the successor of Lionel Van Deerlin on January 3, 1973. After two re- elections she was able to complete in Congress until January 3, 1979 three legislative periods. Since 1975, she represented there as a successor of Alphonso Bell 28th district of their state. In her time as a congressman fell among other things, the end of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal.

In 1978 she gave up another candidacy. At the same time a failed bid for the office of Attorney General of California. In the years 1979 and 1980 and again from 1992 to 2008 she served on the County Council (Board of Supervisors ) in Los Angeles County. In March 2012, Yvonne Burke was appointed by President Barack Obama to the Board of Directors of Amtrak.