Kristin Bahner (born August 15, 1972) is an American politician serving in the

Minnesota House of Representatives The Minnesota House of Representatives is the lower house of the Legislature of the U.S. state of Minnesota. There are 134 members, twice as many as the Minnesota Senate. Floor sessions are held in the north wing of the State Capitol in Saint Pa ...

since 2019. A member of the

Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party The Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL) is the Minnesota affiliate of the U.S. Democratic Party. As of 2022, it controls four of Minnesota's eight U.S. House seats, both of its U.S. Senate seats, the Minnesota House of Represen ...

(DFL), Bahner represents District 37B in the northwestern

Twin Cities Twin cities are a special case of two neighboring cities or urban centres that grow into a single conurbation – or narrowly separated urban areas – over time. There are no formal criteria, but twin cities are generally comparable in statu ...

metropolitan area, including the city of Maple Grove in

Hennepin County Hennepin County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Minnesota. Its county seat is Minneapolis, the state's most populous city. The county is named in honor of the 17th-century explorer Father Louis Hennepin. The county extends from Minneapol ...

Early life, education, and career

Bahner was raised in

Richfield, Minnesota Richfield is a suburban city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States near the confluence of the Mississippi River and the Minnesota River at Fort Snelling. An inner ring suburb of Minneapolis, it is bordered by Minneapolis to the north, Minn ...

. She attended

Gustavus Adolphus College Gustavus Adolphus College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in St. Peter, Minnesota. It was founded in 1862 by Swedish Americans led by Eric Norelius and is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Gustavus gets its nam ...

, graduating with a

bachelor of arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

in communications. Bahner is an

IT consultant In management, information technology consulting (also called IT consulting, computer consultancy, business and technology services, computing consultancy, technology consulting, and IT advisory) is a field of activity which focuses on advising or ...

and small business owner specializing in

agile software development In software development, agile (sometimes written Agile) practices include requirements discovery and solutions improvement through the collaborative effort of self-organizing and cross-functional teams with their customer(s)/ end user(s), ad ...

and project management. Bahner was one of the original organizers of the Minnesota Women's March that brought an estimated 110,000 people to the Minnesota State Capitol in January 2017, making it one of the largest single-day events in Minnesota history.

Minnesota House of Representatives

Bahner was elected to the

2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United ...

and has been reelected every two years since. Bahner first ran unsuccessfully in

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...

, challenging one-term

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

incumbent Dennis Smith. She challenged Smith again in 2018 and won. In 2018, Bahner's race was one of the top three races that generated the most outside spending and was supported by the Give Smart project. Bahner serves as vice chair of the Human Services Finance Committee and sits on the Elections Finance and Policy, Health Finance and Policy, and State and Local Government Finance and Policy Committees. From 2021 to 2022, she was vice chair of the Human Services Finance and Policy Committee, and from 2019 to 2020 she was vice chair of the Subcommittee on Elections. Governor

Tim Walz Timothy James Walz ( ; born April 6, 1964) is an American politician and retired educator. A member of the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), he has served as the 41st governor of Minnesota since 2019. Born in West Point, Nebraska, Walz ...

appointed Bahner to serve on the governor's Blue Ribbon Panel on IT Reform, now called the Governor's Technical Advisory Council. She also was appointed chair of the Legislative Commission on Cybersecurity, which was created to identify vulnerabilities in Minnesota's cybersecurity defenses. Bahner has authored legislation that would make it easier for women to get access to

long-acting reversible contraceptives Long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARC) are methods of birth control that provide effective contraception for an extended period without requiring user action. They include injections, intrauterine devices (IUDs), and subdermal contracept ...

(LARC) shortly after giving birth.

Electoral history

Personal life

Bahner lives in

Maple Grove, Minnesota Maple Grove is a suburban city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 70,253 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. making it Minnesota's 11th most populous city. Maple Grove serves ...

, with her partner, Brahme.

References

External links

Official House of Representatives website

Official campaign website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bahner, Kristin Living people People from Maple Grove, Minnesota Gustavus Adolphus College alumni Democratic Party members of the Minnesota House of Representatives 21st-century American politicians 21st-century American women politicians Women state legislators in Minnesota 1972 births