Sewell captured the seat of retiring Democrat Artur Davis with 73 percent of the vote in Alabama’s 7th Congressional District, easily defeating Republican Don Chamberlain.
Sewell had never run for elected office before entering the Democratic primary race , which she won by 10 percentage points in July. The representative-elect, who was publicly supported by President Barack Obama, attributed her victory to her demonstration of community leadership, along with the strength of her community and the Princeton network.
A native of Selma, Ala., a major city in the Black Belt region of her district, Sewell was previously an attorney at Maynard Cooper & Gale, where she was the firm’s first black female partner.
The main issues in her campaign were job creation and economic development. “Frankly, it’s a systemic issue that stems way back,” Sewell said, explaining, “I think the best way to address that is to address our infrastructure and transportation needs — water and sewer and roads and bridges.” She added that other important issues are education and health care.
To address these concerns, Sewell now has her immediate attention set on establishing offices in her district and in Washington, hiring staff, and attaining her preferred committee assignments.
“Trying to figure out your way around committee assignments — that in and of itself has been a big venture,” said Sewell, who has her eyes on the Transportation and Infrastructure, Financial Services, Agriculture, and Judiciary committees. While she would prefer to be on the more powerful health subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee or on the Appropriations Committee, “both of those are usually out of reach for freshmen,” she said. Sewell spent the week of Nov. 15 in Washington for freshman orientation.
Her political director, Terri Sharpley, explained that another important step is reaching out to local leadership in the district.
“One big project that we are working on right now is to have a series of policy roundtables throughout the district and invite the local leaders to come and to voice their concerns about what’s going on in their area and also see what source of ideas they have for how Terri can work cooperatively with them,” Sharpley said.
“The Democrats being the minority of the House will be a bit of a challenge,” Sewell noted. “But frankly I believe that doesn’t change the nature of my job ... My focus has to be on providing resources and opportunities to the 7th Congressional District.”
An important lesson from the campaign trail was to remain true to herself and her sense of integrity, Sewell said.
“The days get long, and the trail gets weary,” Sewell explained. “And in a district like mine — where it’s a lot of rural area, back roads — there are times when you doubt why you’re doing it. I believe that the best lesson I learned was the foresight of remembering why it is that I ran and maintaining who I am as a person.”
Sharpley also noted that the work of campaigning required “eight days a week, 30 hours a day,” especially given the size of the 7th Congressional District, which covers 12 counties.
“The main thing I know that we learned is that you really have to have a heart for public service to do this,” Sharpley said.
As a first-time candidate, garnering name recognition was a major campaign focus for Sewell.
“At the end of the day, what set our campaign apart from others is that I think we ran a highly professional, modern-day campaign that was focused on getting me in front of the public, both by media and by canvassing,” said Sewell, whose campaign raised more than $1.6 million to gain a large financial advantage over her opponents.
Sharpley, who was primarily responsible for helping Sewell with community and political outreach, explained that the campaign staff worked to ensure that Sewell had an active presence at local events, such as holiday celebrations and parades.
“This being her first run for office, she didn’t really have the political infrastructure that some of our opponents had,” Sharpley explained. “We would set up meetings for her, try to make sure she was in places where she could get the political knowledge she needed to make her effective on her campaign trail.”
Sewell noted that the network and leadership skills that she had built through community service also gave her a critical edge in her run for Congress.
Upon returning to Alabama in 2004 after working at a New York law firm, Sewell was co-chair of the Women’s Fund’s Voices Against Violence inaugural campaign. She also served on the boards of a number of community organizations.
“My best advice for anyone aspiring to be a congressperson is to get involved in your community in some capacity,” Sewell said. “The fact that I had never been an elected official — that really paled in comparison to the community leadership that I had displayed all my life.”
This leadership was already evident during Sewell’s days at Princeton, where she served twice as vice president of her class and also as a class representative to the USG.
The Wilson School concentrator also studied leadership academically. Sewell won the African American studies senior thesis prize for her thesis, “Black Women in Politics: Our Time Has Come,” which she said “ultimately became the handbook for me to run for Congress.”
As part of her thesis research, she interviewed Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American congresswoman, who from 1969 to 1983 represented New York’s 12th Congressional District. She also spoke with Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., who is still in office.
“I really got to explore, through that process, what it means to run,” Sewell explained. “What are the challenges and how to overcome the challenges of running for political office. It was amazing to me to look back on my senior thesis and see how much of what I talked about really helped me run for Congress.”
After graduating from Princeton, Sewell continued her studies at Oxford, where she received a master’s degree in political science with first-class honors, and then at Harvard Law School, from which she graduated in 1992. Shortly thereafter, she began her legal career in New York at Davis Polk & Wardwell.
Sewell noted the importance of Princeton alumni and classmates in helping her on the path to Congress. Sewell was the first black valedictorian of Selma High School in Selma, Ala., and was the school’s first graduate to attend an Ivy League college. She was recruited to Princeton by Julian McPhillips ’68, a lawyer who in 2002 lost his own bid for Alabama’s Democratic Senate nomination.
And decades later, former New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bill Bradley ’65 helped host an event in New York to support her campaign during the primary.
“[They] really provided the backbone for my support system — my volunteer and donor base,” Sewell said. “Even now, the Princeton congresspeople who are currently there have been very helpful to me.”
On election night in November, Sewell was in Selma with friends and family, many of whom are community leaders as well. Sewell’s mother was the first African-American woman to sit on the Selma city council, and her father was a basketball coach at her high school.
“We also invited pioneering women from Alabama and several civil rights leaders from around this district,” Sewell said. “It was really great to be literally in the same room with women whose shoulders I stand on.”
She added that her experience growing up in Selma made her very cognizant of the civil rights movement.
“I realize that people have marched, black and white, men and women, for me to have the right to be the first African-American woman to represent Alabama,” Sewell said. “It was a very moving moment to be in my hometown, at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, when I was declared the winner.”
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