Diane Loeffler is a Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

 politician and a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives

Minnesota House of Representatives

The Minnesota House of Representatives is the lower house in the Minnesota State Legislature. There are 134 members elected to two-year terms, twice the number of members in the Minnesota Senate. Each senate district is divided in half and given the suffix A or B...

 representing District 59A, which includes the thirteen neighborhoods of Northeast Minneapolis in Hennepin County

Hennepin County, Minnesota

Hennepin County is a county located in the U.S. state of Minnesota, named in honor of the 17th-century explorer Father Louis Hennepin. As of 2010 the population was 1,152,425. Its county seat is Minneapolis. It is by far the most populous county in Minnesota; more than one in five Minnesotans live...

, which is part of the Twin Cities

Twin cities

Twin cities are a special case of two cities or urban centres which are founded in close geographic proximity and then grow into each other over time...

 metropolitan area. A Democrat

Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party

The Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party is a major political party in the state of Minnesota and the state affiliate of the Democratic Party. It was created on April 15, 1944, with the merger of the Minnesota Democratic Party and the Farmer–Labor Party...

, she is a health policy analyst and planner for Hennepin County.

Legislative service

Loeffler was first elected in 2004 and was re-elected in 2006, 2008 and 2010. She is currently a member of the Ethics Committee, the Health and Human Services Reform Committee, the Property and Local Taxes Division, and the Taxes Committee. A former assistant majority leader

Majority leader

In U.S. politics, the majority floor leader is a partisan position in a legislative body.In the federal Congress, the role differs slightly in the two houses. In the House of Representatives, which chooses its own presiding officer, the leader of the majority party is elected the Speaker of the...

, Loeffler's DFL Party is now in the minority.

Education and professional career

Loeffler graduated from Edison High School

Edison High School (Minnesota)

Thomas Alva Edison High School is the only public high school in the Northeast community of Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was named for American inventor Thomas Alva Edison...

 in Minneapolis, then went on to Augsburg College

Augsburg College

Augsburg College is a selective liberal arts college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Augsburg was named for the Augsburg Confession, the document of Lutheran belief. The school was founded in 1869 in Marshall, Wisconsin as Augsburg Seminary and moved...

, also in Minneapolis, earning her B.A.

Bachelor of Arts

A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 magna cum laude in Social Science. She also attended graduate school at the University of Minnesota

University of Minnesota

The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...

 for Educational Administration and Public Administration. Prior to her current position with Hennepin County, she worked as a senior financial analyst for the city of Minneapolis, with Hennepin County Human Services' Health and Training and Employment, as a tax policy analyst and legislative representative for the League of Minnesota Cities

League of Minnesota Cities

The League of Minnesota Cities , founded in 1913 by a special law passed by the Minnesota Legislature, was initially a part of the Extension Division of the University of Minnesota. In 1974, the League became an independent organization...

, as Director of Senior Services for School District 281, and as an education budget and policy analyst for the state of Minnesota.

Community service

Active in her local community and at the state level through the years, Loeffler has been executive director of the Association for Retarded Citizens

Arc of the United States

The Arc of the United States is the world's largest grassroots organization serving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The organization was originally founded in the 1950s by parents of individuals with developmental disabilities. Since that time, the organization has...

 of Saint Paul

Saint Paul, Minnesota

Saint Paul is the capital and second-most populous city of the U.S. state of Minnesota. The city lies mostly on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the area surrounding its point of confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Minneapolis, the state's largest city...

, a founding board member of the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, a founder of Northeast Libraries Supporters, and a member of the Windom Park Citizens in Action. She has also been a member of the Central Avenue Planning Committee, of the Minneapolis Citizens Committee on Public Education, and of the Northeast Retail Shopping Task Force. She served on the Minnesota 2005 Capitol Centennial Commission, and on the Minnesota Statehood Sesquicentennial Commission from 2006-2008.

External links

• Rep. Loeffler Web Page
• Minnesota Public Radio Votetracker: Rep. Diane Loeffler
• Project Votesmart - Rep. Diane Loeffler Profile
• Diane Loeffler Campaign Web Site