| Senator Sally Harrell was first elected to the Georgia Senate in 2018 to serve the 40th Senate District, which includes parts of Dekalb and Gwinnett counties. Sen. Harrell is a member of the Senate Higher Education, Retirement, Government Oversight and State Institutions and Property Committees. Previously, Sen. Harrell served on the Senate Ethics and Natural Resources & the Environment Committees. A champion of women and family issues, she currently serves as the Senate co-Chair of the Georgia Women's Legislative Caucus and Vice Chair of both the Dekalb Delegation and the Working Families Caucus. Recent legislative accomplishments include reducing the cost of higher education in Georgia, expanding the number of Georgians with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) who receive Medicaid waivers for Home & Community-Based services, and mandating Provider Rate Study Reviews for IDD service providers every four years. Sen. Harrell was a member of the Georgia House of Representatives from 1999 to 2005, where she was a member of the House Education, Human Relations & Aging, Children & Youth, and Appropriations Committees. As a State Representative, Sen. Harrell backed a wide range of women's and children's issues, advocating for mental health and disability services and mandatory recess for children. Sen. Harrell also helped pass a law protecting mothers who breastfeed in public. Prior to serving in the Legislature, Sen. Harrell was the Executive Director of the Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Georgia. She received her Masters of Social Work from the University of Georgia and a Bachelor of Social work from Georgia State University. Currently, she lives with her husband in unincorporated Dekalb County and is a proud mother to two young adults. |