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American politician From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kimberly Yee[2] (born February 23, 1974) is an American politician serving as the 45th Arizona state treasurer. She is the first Asian-American woman elected to the Arizona State Legislature.
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Kimberly Yee | |
|---|---|
| |
| 45th State Treasurer of Arizona | |
| Assumed office January 7, 2019 | |
| Governor | Doug Ducey Katie Hobbs |
| Preceded by | Eileen Klein |
| Majority Leader of the Arizona Senate | |
| In office January 9, 2017 – January 7, 2019 | |
| Preceded by | Steve Yarbrough |
| Succeeded by | Rick Gray |
| Member of the Arizona Senate from the 20th district | |
| In office January 14, 2013 – January 7, 2019 | |
| Preceded by | John McComish |
| Succeeded by | Paul Boyer |
| Member of the Arizona House of Representatives from the 10th district | |
| In office January 10, 2011 – January 14, 2013 | |
| Preceded by | Doug Quelland |
| Succeeded by | Stefanie Mach |
| Personal details | |
| Born | February 23, 1974 Phoenix, Arizona, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse | Nelson Mar |
| Education | Pepperdine University (BA) Arizona State University (MPA) |
| Website | Government website |
| Kimberly Yee | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese | 余艷芬[1] | ||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 余艳芬 | ||||||||||
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A member of the Republican Party, she was elected to the Arizona House of Representatives for the 10th legislative district from 2011 to 2013 and the Arizona Senate for the 20th legislative district from 2013 until 2019.[3] She was elected to the position of Arizona state treasurer on November 6, 2018. As Treasurer, Kimberly Yee is currently the highest-ranking statewide elected Republican in Arizona.
Yee announced her candidacy for Arizona governor in May 2021 but withdrew from the Republican nomination race in January 2022 to run for reelection as treasurer.[4]
Yee was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona; she traces her ancestry to Taishan, Guangdong.[5] Yee attended Greenway High School in Phoenix where she was a student journalist at the Demon Dispatch in the early 1990s.[6] Yee is a graduate of Pepperdine University where she earned a bachelor's degree in political science and a bachelor's degree in English. She also holds a master's degree in public administration from Arizona State University's School of Public Affairs, and was the recipient of the honored Scholar-Citizen Award.
Yee worked for California Republican governors Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger. She was then communications director at the office of the state treasurer of Arizona. Upon the recommendation of Republican Governor Jan Brewer, Yee was appointed by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to replace Republican representative Doug Quelland after he was ousted for violating Clean Election Limits.[7]
Yee served as state committeeman for the Arizona Republican Party, chair of the Arizona Legislative District 10 Republican Committee, and delegate for Arizona at the 2008 Republican National Convention.
As a member of the Arizona House of Representatives in 2011, Kimberly Yee was the sponsor of the "Ultrasound and Heartbeat Bill" which required doctors to provide women with the option to have an ultrasound image before proceeding with an abortion. The bill passed and was signed into law.[8]
Yee was an invited speaker at the 2016 Republican National Convention.[9]
Yee represented District 20 in the Arizona Senate from 2013 to 2019. Yee also served as state Senate majority leader from 2017 to 2019. She became the second woman elected to this position in Arizona’s history, following U.S. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor who served the position in 1973, forty-four years earlier.
On November 29, 2017, she announced her candidacy for the position of Arizona state treasurer. Yee was elected Arizona treasurer on November 6, 2018.
In 2019, she implemented Senate Bill 1184, which required college students to pass a course in economics that includes financial literacy and personal finance management in order to graduate. Yee went on to create a statewide literacy task force, a 16-member board assigned the job of identifying the scope of financial literacy and proposing solutions for improvement.[10]
During the 2020 presidential campaign, she served nationally as a Co-Chairwoman of the Asian Pacific Americans for Trump Coalition and as a Member of the Pro-Life Voices for Trump Coalition.[11]
On May 17, 2021, Yee announced her candidacy for Governor of Arizona in the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election.[12][13] She later dropped out of the governor's race, running for re-election as Arizona State Treasurer.[14]
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