Janet Petersen

Janet Petersen (born August 1, 1970) is an American politician and a Democratic member of the Iowa Senate representing the 18th District since January 2013. She previously served as the Senate Minority Leader and has previously represented the 64th district in the Iowa House of Representatives between 2001 and 2013. She received her BA from the University of Northern Iowa and her MA from Drake University.

Petersen serves on several committees in the Iowa Senate – the Government Oversight, Judiciary, State Government and Ways & Means committees. She also serves as the ranking member of the Commerce Committee. Petersen served as state Senate minority leader after replacing Rob Hogg in October 2017. She was the first woman to lead the Senate Democratic caucus.

Career
Before her election to the state legislature, Petersen worked for the '92 Clinton-Gore campaign, the American Heart Association, and Strategic America, a marketing communications firm.

Since becoming a politician, much of her private work has focused on making Iowa "the safest place in the nation to have a baby". In 2004, she helped launch a stillbirth registry project that brings in more than $2 million a year to find causes and cures of stillbirths.

Electoral history
* incumbent