Kate Anderson is a mother, local elected official, community activist, former Capitol Hill staffer and attorney with a long record of building consensus and delivering real results. Born in Illinois but raised first in California and then Arizona, Kate returned to Los Angeles to attend UCLA. Always one to be active in her community, Kate immediately immersed herself in UCLA, becoming involved in UCLA’s main charity, UniCamp, local Democratic Party politics, and student government. She ran and was elected Student Body President at UCLA. Her interest in bettering her community through government service lead her to spend her final year in Washington DC working for Congressman Henry Waxman.

Originally scheduled just to be a Fall intern for Congressman Waxman she was almost immediately offered a full-time job, an opportunity she quickly accepted. Two years later, realizing that she needed more education to truly impact the issues she cared about, she decided to attend law school. She attended the University of Chicago Law School while President Barack Obama was there and she studied under Cass Sunstein. She became a member of the Law Review and graduated with High Honors. After one year working as a law clerk for Chief Judge Harry Edwards of the DC Circuit Court, she was ready to return to Capitol Hill and Congressman Waxman’s tutelage.

As a Counsel on Waxman’s Government Reform and Oversight Committee, Kate got to see first-hand the impact government could have in improving people’s lives. Her work on the Committee varied widely and included everything from elections issues to nursing homes to postal reform. She initiated, researched, and wrote a major study on voting irregularities in the 2000 election. The study found that voters in poor and minority areas had their votes uncounted three times as often as their counterparts in richer areas with fewer minorites.

The report was widely covered in national news including the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Headline News. Kate also worked extensively on investigations into nursing home care helping to shed light on abuses in nursing homes around the country.

While working on the Committee, Kate helped to draft major bipartisan legislation that fundamentally reformed the Postal Service. Postal reform had been a long-standing issue in Congress that pitted entrenched interests against each other, forcing a frustrating stalemate. Working the issue from new and innovative ways, Kate was able to forge common ground and bring all the warring sides together, including the unions and the postal service itself. The legislation eventually passed in largely the form Kate helped draft, prompting a letter from Congressman Waxman praising Kate’s role as instrumental.

After getting married, Kate and her husband Peter decided to return home to Los Angeles to get involved in the community, begin her law career at Munger,Tolles & Olson, LLP (MTO) and start a family. In July of 2004 they were blessed by the birth of twin girls, Darby and Emeline.

As much as she enjoyed motherhood, Kate faced the tough decision between work and home that many women struggle with. Fortunately, MTO has a reduced hours policy so that she could spend time with her girls. However, the  stress of balancing work and family left an impression on Kate and she realized the importance of dependable, flexible child care for working parents. Although no law firms on the west coast sponsor full time child care centers, she knew that it was not only possible but important for workers. People told her that it couldn’t be done. Using her experience building coalitions on Capitol Hill, she didn’t let that stop her. She brought the idea to the managing partners, knocked on dozens of doors, worked closely with a child care consultant, helped to bring in Oaktree Capital Management, L.P. and O’Melveny and Myers, LLP as partners and nearly two years later, the child care center is scheduled to open late summer.

Kate and her family live in Mar Vista. She is an elected member of the Mar Vista Community Council and the Hilltop Neighbors Association. She is a former board member for the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles and a current member of the Los Angeles County Child Care Planning Committee. When not chasing Darby and Emeline around the house, she can be found running or swimming at the local YMCA.