In 1998 Heather Wilson became the first woman veteran
of the U.S. armed services and the second woman from
New Mexico elected to the U.S. Congress. In the House,
Wilson served on the powerful Energy and Commerce
Committee, as well as the Intelligence Committee where she
helped shape national security policy in the years following
the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. In the House,
Wilson spearheaded new consumer protections, as more
and more Americans conducted business online, and passed
additional regulations for wireless communications as cell
phones grew in popularity. Back home, Wilson also passed a
number of bills preserving New Mexico’s cultural heritage.
Heather A. Wilson was born on December 30, 1960,
in Keene, New Hampshire, to George and Martha
Lou Wilson, the second of three children. Her father, a
commercial pilot, was killed in a car accident when she was
six.1 Growing up, Wilson wanted to become a pilot like her
father and grandfather, and when she was in high school
the United States Air Force Academy began admitting
women. She applied and was accepted to the academy
and graduated an Air Force officer in 1982. She earned a
Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University where, by
1985, she earned a master’s and a doctorate in international
relations. Wilson served in the Air Force until 1989 when
she joined the National Security Council staff as director
for European Defense Policy and Arms Control.2 In 1991,
she married lawyer Jay Hone, and the couple settled in
New Mexico. They raised three children: Scott, Joshua, and
Caitlin.3 Wilson started a consulting firm and, from 1995
to 1998, served in the governor’s cabinet as secretary of the
New Mexico children, youth and families department.4
When New Mexico’s Albuquerque Congressman Steven
Harvey Schiff declared he would not run for re-election
in the fall of 1998 to focus on his battle with skin cancer,
Wilson resigned her state cabinet post and entered the
Republican primary to fill the seat. She won the support
of Schiff and Senator Pete Vichi Domenici, who lent her
several trusted aides and called her “the most brilliantly
qualified House candidate anywhere in the country.”5 But
when Schiff died in March, the state scheduled a special
election for June 23. With Domenici’s support, Wilson
won the Republican primary for the special election over
conservative state senator William F. Davis, which also
propelled her to a sizable win in the June 2 primary for
the fall election to the full term. Wilson won the June 23
special election with 45 percent of the vote in a three-way
race against millionaire Democratic state senator Phillip
J. Maloof and Green Party candidate Robert L. Anderson.
Wilson took the Oath of Office on June 25, 1998, making
her the first woman since Georgia Lusk in 1947, and the
first Republican woman ever, to represent New Mexico.6
The special election was but a preview for the fall election
for the full two-year term. In both elections, Wilson ran on
the slogan “fighting for our families.” She called for better
public schools, and the elimination of both the marriage
penalty in the tax code and estate taxes. Both contests
against Maloof were contentious and costly—the 1998
general election was the most expensive in New Mexico’s
history at the time. Maloof, who spent over $8 million on
the elections, tried to portray Wilson as an outsider. But
Wilson, who spent over a million dollars herself, captured
the general election in November 1998 with 48 percent
of the vote. She won re-election in 2000 by seven points,
and in 2002 and 2004 she defeated Democrat Richard
Romero with roughly 55 percent of the vote. In 2006, when
Republicans lost the majority in the House, Wilson faced
her closest challenge, defeating Democrat Patricia Madrid
by only 861 votes out of more than 211,000 cast.7
When Wilson entered the House in 1998, she received a
seat on the powerful Commerce Committee (later renamed
Energy and Commerce), including its subcommittees on
Telecommunications, Trade, and Consumer Protection;
and Finance and Hazardous Materials. She remained on the
committee for the duration of her House career. Wilson also
won an additional seat on the Permanent Select Committee
on Intelligence. But she left that assignment in the 107th
Congress (2001–2003) for a seat on the influential Armed
Services Committee, which allowed her to oversee personnel
and infrastructure issues at two military installations in her
district: Kirtland Air Force Base and the Sandia National
Lab. In the 109th Congress (2005–2007), Wilson left
Armed Services to return to the Intelligence Committee,
where she chaired the Subcommittee on Technical and
Tactical Intelligence.8
In Congress, Wilson called to simplify the tax code
and, as a veteran of the armed services, led the GOP’s
opposition to the American bombing campaign in Kosovo.
But on many social issues, Wilson broke with her party.
She supported the requirement that federal workers’ health
plans cover contraception (although she opposed using
public money to pay for abortions) and she voted down
an amendment that would have banned adoptions by gay
parents in the District of Columbia. She also opposed a plan
by the Republican leadership to move control of America’s
nuclear weapons program, which was largely based in New
Mexico, from the Department of Energy to the Pentagon.9
From her seat on the Energy and Commerce Committee,
Wilson worked on a wide range of policies. In 1999, as
more and more people used cellphones and other new
telecommunication services, Wilson’s Wireless Privacy
Enhancement Act of 1999 sought to add more protections
to cellular and digital technologies. Her bill passed the
House in March 1999.10 Somewhat similarly a year later,
Wilson submitted legislation to cut down on spam emails
as more and more people began to shop using the Internet;
her Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Act of 2000
cleared the committee and passed the House in July.11
Wilson also worked on a number of cultural preservation
issues important to New Mexico in the House. In August
1999, Wilson’s bill authorizing the Secretary of the Interior
to create programs and partnerships with state and local
governments and organizations to protect landmark
businesses and sites along historic Route 66 became
law.12 Similarly, in 2002 the Senate version of Wilson’s
Old Spanish National Historic Trail Act became law. The
legislation added the Old Spanish Trail—which ran from
Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Los Angeles, California—to
the National Trails System and authorized new federal
protections.13 Wilson also helped create a partnership
between the Interior Department and the University
of New Mexico to protect and curate artifacts from the
Chaco Culture Historic Park and Aztec Ruins National
Monument.14 And in 2006, Wilson’s Esther Martinez
Native American Languages Preservation Act became
law. The legislation created grants in the Department of
Health and Human Services to fund “language nests” and
other “restoration programs” to teach children in Native
American languages.15
In 2006 Wilson led efforts to ensure that Congress
maintained oversight of the President’s terror surveillance
program. As head of the Intelligence Committee’s Technical
and Tactical Intelligence Subcommittee, Wilson learned
that the National Security Agency (NSA) had instituted a
warrantless electronic surveillance program in the aftermath
of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Wilson
expressed “serious concerns” over the range of the program
which had no congressional oversight—an issue echoed
by several senior congressional Republicans. By the end of
2006 the House had passed a conditional authorization for
the NSA’s surveillance program.16
Wilson’s willingness to break with the party on certain
issues led to resentment from GOP leaders. During the
108th Congress (2003–2005), for instance, Energy and
Commerce Chairman Joe Linus Barton of Texas required
committee members to apply for a waiver if they wanted to
serve on any other important committees. When Wilson
supported a Democratic motion requiring the George W.
Bush administration to release internal cost estimates of its
Medicare prescription-drug law, Barton not only attempted
to remove her from Energy and Commerce, he also refused
to provide the waiver to allow Wilson to continue serving
on Armed Services.17
Wilson chose not to seek re-election to a sixth full
term in the House, and instead announced her intention
to run in 2008 for the open Senate seat held by Pete
Domenici who had decided to retire. Wilson narrowly
lost the Republican primary and retired from Congress at
conclusion of the 110th Congress (2007–2009) on January
3, 2009. Three years later Wilson again ran for a seat in the
Senate from New Mexico, winning the primary but losing
the general election.18
From 2013 to 2017, Wilson served as president of the
South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, in Rapid
City. On March 21, 2017, President Donald J. Trump
nominated Wilson to serve as Secretary of the United
States Air Force. Confirmed by the Senate on May 8, 2017,
Wilson served as Secretary until her resignation on May 31,
2019. She became the president of the University of Texas at
El Paso in August 2019.19
[ Top ]
