Yvonne Brathwaite Burke

Nominated by President Barack Obama as a Director of the Amtrak Board in March 2012. Confirmed by the U.S. Senate in January 2013. Yvonne Brathwaite Burke is from Los Angeles, CA. She is currently a member of the California Transportation Commission. She served as a Los Angeles County Supervisor representing the 2nd District (1992 - 2008) and served as the Chair three times (1993 - 94, 1997 - 98, 2002 - 03). On December 1, 2008, she retired from the Board of Supervisors. She also served for 16 years on the Los Angeles Metro Board of Directors, serving as Chair for one term. In 1973, she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and was the first African-American woman to represent the West Coast in Congress. During her Congressional tenure, she served on the House Select Committee on Assassinations and the House Committee on Appropriations; during her tenure on the Appropriations Committee, she introduced an amendment to the Alaskan Pipeline legislation to establish a new precedent that provided for a set aside for minority and women business to participate in federal contracts. In 1973, with the birth of her daughter Autumn, Burke became the first Congresswoman to give birth while in office and the first to be granted maternity leave by the Speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives. She did not seek re-election to Congress in 1978 but instead ran for Attorney General of California. She won the Democratic nomination over Los Angeles City Attorney Burt Pines but was defeated in the general election by Republican State Senator George Deukmejian. She attended the University of California at Berkeley and the University of California at Los Angeles, where she received a Bachelor's degree. She also received a J.D. from the University of Southern California Law School.