Marjorie Margolies

Former Congresswoman Marjorie Margolies was the key vote in the 1993 vote for the Clinton economic plan, that created millions of jobs, balanced the federal budget, gave our country a government surplus and began shrinking the national debt.

Margolies’ vote made all the difference by casting the decisive vote, 218, that decided whether our new president and Congress could prove to the Federal Reserve board and the country’s money managers that the government could be trusted to get the country’s fiscal house in order and keep it that way. 


With Republicans chanting, “Good-bye, Marjorie,” she put her House I.D. card into the slot and cast her vote “aye.” Marjorie Margolies has said: “I was pressed by all sides, by my constituents, my president needing a victory and Republicans promising my demise.  I was a Democrat in the country’s most Republican district.  I voted my conscience, and it cost me.” 

She was defeated in the next election by a candidate whose most discernible quality was that he was not Margolies. In one of the wealthiest counties in the country, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, it was not difficult to defeat a member of Congress that had voted for a budget that while holding the line on spending, also included tax hikes. 


Amazingly, the courageous vote that Margolies cast on that day 17 years ago made it possible to balance the budget and resulted in a surplus. The economy of the 1990s became robust and the wealthy folks in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania became even richer. Not long ago, she insisted: “I’d do it again, I’d do it again.”

However, the thing that she couldn’t even have imagined at the time was that her son, Marc, will marry Chelsea Clinton tomorrow. 

Congresswoman Margolies cast a very difficult vote that she’ll be proud of for the rest of her life.