NYTimes.com

In Late Flurry, Senator Gains Her Foothold

By DAVID M. HALBFINGER

Published: December 22, 2010

The spotlight was shining on her at last, and Kirsten E. Gillibrand, the oft-overshadowed junior senator from New York, did not hold back.

Pounding the lectern on the Senate floor, raising her voice almost to a shout, Ms. Gillibrand hectored, reasoned with and sought to shame her colleagues into ending the 17-year-old ban on gays’ serving openly in the military.

“If you care about national security, if you care about our military readiness,” she demanded, “then you will repeal this corrosive policy.”

The repeal passed two hours later on Saturday, but Ms. Gillibrand, a Democrat, had little time to savor the moment.

The next morning, she was off to Senate strategy sessions, a news conference and Fox News to push for the passage of another major initiative: a bill to provide medical care for rescue workers sickened by inhaling fumes, dust and smoke at the site of the World Trade Center attack.

When that measure, too, won approval on Wednesday, it not only marked a victory of legislative savvy and persistence. It also signaled the serious emergence of Ms. Gillibrand, the 43-year-old successor to Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Once derided as an accidental senator, lampooned for her verbosity and threatened with many challengers who openly doubted her abilities, a succinct, passionate and effective Senator Gillibrand has made her presence felt in the final days of this Congress.

Her efforts have won grudging admiration from critics, adulation from national liberals and gay rights groups, and accolades from New York politicians across the political spectrum, including Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who once shopped for potential candidates to oust her.

Even her relentlessness, which once drew mockery, is now earning the highest compliment of all: professional jealousy from her more senior colleagues.

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And, today, she was all over the Senate floor encouraging people to vote yes on the new START... Really reminded me of Hillary.

Is you have been watching.. you couldnt help but admire this Senator. She has been absolutely phenomenal.  I am quite proud of my Senator Gillibrand.

She has a very bright future ahead of her.