Debra Bowen

Debra Lynn Bowen (born October 27, 1955) is an American attorney and politician who served as the Secretary of State of California from 2007 to 2015. Previously, she was a member of the California State Legislature from 1992 to 2006. In March 2008, she was given the Profile in Courage Award by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

Quotes

• While I believe government should be as transparent as possible, I also believe people deserve to live free of fear or harassment.
  • Consumer Protection Retrieved 20 April 2025
• We cannot prepare for the future unless we invest in our education system and make it a national priority.
• I believe good environmental policy and good economic policy go hand-in-hand.
• I have always believed that transparency is critical to a functioning democracy.
• Social Security and Medicare are not just the cornerstones of the social safety net. They are promises that must be kept.
• I support full marriage equality and have done so very publicly and very vocally for more than a decade.
• As a member of Congress, I will make creating jobs priority number one.
  • Debra Bowen Retrieved 20 April 2025
• A pioneer in open government reform, election integrity, and personal privacy rights.
  • Debra Bowen Retrieved 20 April 2025
• I had complete control over what I worked on, It speaks very strongly to the power of just following what your interests are and doing something that interests you. I think that roads into a career path come up that you just wouldn’t see if you had it all mapped out.
• Democracy doesn’t work if people can’t trust the system that they use to cast ballots.
• I do take the Jeffersonian principles very solemnly, and particularly the Jeffersonian idea that if you don’t believe that people have adequate knowledge to make decisions then the remedy is not to take the decision-making away from them, but to inform their discretion.
• We were pretty sure there was market manipulation going on, but you have to be able to prove it.
• I did observe that you almost never had emergencies if you were doing pension law. I concluded that you could actually make a very good living doing pension law, but what you traded it for was being pretty bored most of the time.
  • Intersection of Technology, Democracy Influenced Bowen’s Path to California Secretary of State Retrieved 20 April 2025