Sharice Davids

Sharice Lynnette Davids (born May 22, 1980) is an American lawyer, former mixed martial artist, and politician serving as the U.S. Representative from Kansas's 3rd congressional district since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, her district serves most of the Kansas side of the Kansas City metropolitan area, including cities such as Kansas City, Overland Park, Lenexa, as well as Olathe.

Davids is the first Democrat elected to represent a Kansas congressional district in a decade. Davids is the first openly LGBT Native American elected to the U.S. Congress, the first openly gay person elected to the U.S. Congress from Kansas, and one of the first two Native American women elected to Congress, along with Deb Haaland of New Mexico. She is also the second Native American to represent Kansas in Congress, after Charles Curtis.

A lawyer educated at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and Cornell Law School, Davids was a professional mixed martial artist in the 2010s.

Davids was born on May 22, 1980 in Frankfurt, West Germany.

Davids is a member of the Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) people, and an enrolled member of the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin. She lives in Roeland Park, Kansas.

Her maternal grandfather, Fredrick J. Davids, a United States Army veteran, was born into the Mohican Nation Stockbridge-Munsee Band, in Oneida, Wisconsin. Sharice was raised by Fredrick's daughter, her mother Crystal Herriage, a single mother who served in the U.S. Army.

Davids attended Leavenworth High School, Haskell Indian Nations University, the University of Kansas, Johnson County Community College, and the University of Missouri–Kansas City, graduating from the last with a bachelor's degree in business administration in 2007. Davids earned her Juris Doctor from Cornell Law School in 2010.

Mixed martial arts career

Davids began competing in mixed martial arts (MMA) as an amateur in 2006, and went professional in 2013. She had a 5–1 win–loss record as an amateur and a 1–1 record as a professional. She tried out for The Ultimate Fighter but did not make it onto the show, leading her to shift her focus away from MMA to travel the U.S. and live on Native American reservations to work with the communities on economic and community development programs.

Record

Professional

Amateur

Legal career

Davids began her legal career at SNR Denton in 2010. She later directed community and economic development for the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and opened her own business, Hoka Coffee.

In 2016, she worked as a White House Fellow in the Department of Transportation during the transition between the Obama and Trump administrations.

U.S. House of Representatives

Elections

In the 2018 election, Davids ran for the United States House of Representatives in Kansas's 3rd congressional district. She defeated fellow Democrat Brent Welder, who had been endorsed by Bernie Sanders, by a margin of 37% to 34% in the August primary election and faced incumbent Republican Kevin Yoder in the November 6, 2018, general election.

Kansas City NPR member station KCUR fact-checked the claims that Yoder and Davids made in separate interviews on their station, and gave Yoder an "F". Yoder said that immigrants were making false asylum claims, and would increase crime. Davids said that she supported single payer health care, but it could not be enacted with Republicans in the White House. Meanwhile she supports short-term goals like allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices and getting generics to market faster. KCUR said that Davids' claim that teachers aren't paid enough, and can no longer take tax deductions for buying their own school supplies, was "partly true and partly false," since the tax deduction was reinstated.

Davids defeated Yoder in the general election. Upon her swearing-in on January 3, 2019; she became the first Democrat to represent Kansas in the House since Dennis Moore left office in 2011. She is also only the second Democrat to represent what is now the 3rd since 1963.

Davids and fellow Democrat Deb Haaland of New Mexico, a Laguna Pueblo, are the first Native American women to serve in Congress.

Tenure

On December 18, 2019, Davids voted to impeach President Donald Trump and was the only person representing Kansas in the House to do so.

Committee assignments

• Committee on Small Business
  • Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Tax and Capital Access
  • Subcommittee on Innovation and Workforce Development
• Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
  • Subcommittee on Aviation
  • Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management
  • Subcommittee on Highways and Transit

Caucus memberships

• Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus (Co-Chair)
• Congressional Native American Caucus (Vice Chair)
• New Democrat Coalition

Recognition

In June 2019, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, an event widely considered a watershed moment in the modern LGBT rights movement, Queerty named her one of the Pride50 "trailblazing individuals who actively ensure society remains moving towards equality, acceptance and dignity for all queer people".