In the summer of 1970, [Hillary] was awarded a grant to work at Marian Wright Edelman's Washington Research Project, where she was assigned to Senator Walter Mondale's Subcommittee on Migratory Labor. There she researched migrant workers' problems in housing, sanitation, health and education.[39] Edelman later became a significant mentor.[40]

Her first scholarly article, "Children Under the Law", was published in the Harvard Educational Review in late 1973.[47] Discussing the new children's rights movement, it stated that "child citizens" were "powerless individuals"[48] and argued that children should not be considered equally incompetent from birth to attaining legal age, but that rather courts should presume competence except when there is evidence otherwise, on a case-by-case basis.[49] The article became frequently cited in the field.[50]

During her post-graduate study, Rodham served as staff attorney for Edelman's newly founded Children's Defense Fund in Cambridge, Massachusetts,[51] and as a consultant to the Carnegie Council on Children.[52] During 1974 she was a member of the impeachment inquiry staff in Washington, D.C., advising the House Committee on the Judiciary during the Watergate scandal.[53] Under the guidance of Chief Counsel John Doar and senior member Bernard Nussbaum,[37] Rodham helped research procedures of impeachment and the historical grounds and standards for impeachment.[54] The committee's work culminated in the resignation of President Richard Nixon in August 1974.[54]

There, in February 1977, Rodham joined the venerable Rose Law Firm, a bastion of Arkansan political and economic influence.[67] She specialized in patent infringement and intellectual property law,[35] while also working pro bono in child advocacy;[68] she rarely performed litigation work in court.[69]

Rodham maintained her interest in children's law and family policy, publishing the scholarly articles "Children's Policies: Abandonment and Neglect" in 1977[70] and "Children's Rights: A Legal Perspective" in 1979.[71] The latter continued her argument that children's legal competence depended upon their age and other circumstances, and that serious medical rights cases, judicial intervention was sometimes warranted.[49] An American Bar Association chair later said, "Her articles were important, not because they were radically new but because they helped formulate something that had been inchoate."[49] Historian Garry Wills would later describe her as "one of the more important scholar-activists of the last two decades",[72] while conservatives said her theories would usurp traditional parental authority,[73] allow children to file frivolous lawsuits against their parents,[49] and argued that her work was legal "crit" theory run amok.[74]

Also in 1977, Rodham co-founded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, a state-level alliance with the Children's Defense Fund.[35][75] And later that same year, President Jimmy Carter (for whom Rodham had done 1976 campaign coordination work in Indiana[76]) appointed her to the board of directors of the Legal Services Corporation,[77] and she served in that capacity from 1978 until the end of 1981.[78] From mid-1978 to mid-1980[79] she served as the chair of that board, the first woman to do so.[80] During her time as chair, funding for the Corporation was expanded from $90 million to $300 million; subsequently she successfully fought President Ronald Reagan's attempts to reduce the funding and change the nature of the organization.[68]

Clinton appointed her chair of the Rural Health Advisory Committee the same year,[81] where she successfully secured federal funds to expand medical facilities in Arkansas's poorest areas without affecting doctors' fees.[82]

As First Lady of Arkansas, Hillary Clinton was named chair of the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee in 1983, where she sought to reform the state's court-sanctioned public education system.[89][90] In one of the Clinton governorship's most important initiatives, she fought a prolonged but ultimately successful battle against the Arkansas Education Association, to establish mandatory teacher testing as well as state standards for curriculum and classroom size.[89][81] In 1985, she also introduced Arkansas's Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youth, a program that helps parents work with their children in preschool preparedness and literacy.[91]

From 1982 to 1988, Clinton was on board of directors, sometimes as chair, of the New World Foundation,[97] which funded a variety of New Left interest groups.[98] From 1987 to 1991, she chaired the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession,[99] which addressed gender bias in the law profession and induced the association to adopt measures to combat it.[99]

Clinton served on the boards of the Arkansas Children's Hospital Legal Services (1988–1992)[102] and the Children's Defense Fund (as chair, 1986–1992).[103][2] In addition to her positions with non-profit organizations, she also held positions on the corporate board of directors of TCBY (1985–1992),[104] Wal-Mart Stores (1986–1992)[105] and Lafarge (1990–1992).[106] TCBY and Wal-Mart were Arkansas-based companies that were also clients of Rose Law.[95][107] Clinton was the first female member on Wal-Mart's board, added following pressure on chairman Sam Walton to name a woman to the board.[107] Once there, she pushed successfully for Wal-Mart to adopt more environmentally friendly practices, was largely unsuccessful in a campaign for more women to be added to the company's management, and was silent about the company's famously anti-labor union practices.[107][108][105]

In 1993, Bill Clinton appointed Hillary Clinton to head and be the chairwoman of the Task Force on National Health Care Reform, hoping to replicate the success she had in leading the effort for Arkansas education reform.[133] The recommendation of the task force became known as the Clinton health care plan, a comprehensive proposal that would require employers to provide health coverage to their employees through individual health maintenance organizations. The plan was quickly derided as "Hillarycare" by its opponents; some protesters against it became vitriolic, and during a July 1994 bus tour to rally support for the plan, she was forced to wear a bulletproof vest at times.[134][135] The plan did not receive enough support for a floor vote in either the House or the Senate, although both chambers were controlled by Democrats, and proposal was abandoned in September 1994.[134] Clinton later acknowledged in her book, Living History, that her political inexperience partly contributed to the defeat, but mentioned that many other factors were also responsible.

Along with Senators Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch, she was a force behind passage of the State Children's Health Insurance Program in 1997, a federal effort that provided state support for children whose parents were unable to provide them with health coverage, and conducted outreach efforts on behalf of enrolling children in the program once it became law.[140] She promoted nationwide immunization against childhood illnesses and encouraged older women to seek a mammogram to detect breast cancer, with coverage provided by Medicare.[141] She successfully sought to increase research funding for prostate cancer and childhood asthma at the National Institutes of Health.[46] The First Lady worked to investigate reports of an illness that affected veterans of the Gulf War, which became known as the Gulf War syndrome.[46] Together with Attorney General Janet Reno, Clinton helped create the Office on Violence Against Women at the Department of Justice.[46] In 1997, she initiated and shepherded the Adoption and Safe Families Act, which she regarded as her greatest accomplishment as First Lady.[46][142] In 1999, she was instrumental in passage of the Foster Care Independence Act, which doubled federal monies for teenagers aging out of foster care.[142] As First Lady, Clinton hosted numerous White House conferences, including ones on Child Care (1997),[143] on Early Childhood Development and Learning (1997),[144] and on Children and Adolescents (2000).[145] She also hosted the first-ever White House Conference on Teenagers (2000)[146] and the first-ever White House Conference on Philanthropy (1999).[147]

In a September 1995 speech before the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, Clinton argued very forcefully against practices that abused women around the world and in the People's Republic of China itself,[150] declaring "that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights"[150] and resisting Chinese pressure to soften her remarks.[148] She was one of the most prominent international figures during the late 1990s to speak out against the treatment of Afghan women by the Islamist fundamentalist Taliban.[151][152] She helped create Vital Voices, an international initiative sponsored by the United States to promote the participation of women in the political processes of their countries.[153]

Clinton initiated and was Founding Chair of the Save America's Treasures program, a national effort that matched federal funds to private donations for the purpose of preserving and restoring historic items and sites,[182] including the flag that inspired "The Star-Spangled Banner" and the First Ladies Historic Site in Canton, Ohio.[46] She was head of the White House Millennium Council,[183] and hosted Millennium Evenings,[184] a series of lectures that discussed futures studies, one of which became the first live simultaneous webcast from the White House.[46] Clinton also created the first Sculpture Garden there, which displayed large contemporary American works of art loaned from museums in the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden.[185]

I don't approve of political dynasties in the White House. It doesn't bother me in Congress. I like the idea of Caroline in the Senate.

AND Caroline Kennedy is from a PRIOR Democratic dynasty . . . A pre-Clintiod one . . . That's soooo pre 90's . . . 1990's.

There are 12 (T-w-e-l-v-e) folk with their hats in this particular rink. Every name mentioned so far has been a good one. I, for one, find comfort in having a Kennedy or two in the America House of the Lords . . . Oooops . . . Senate.

The real issue here is Obama NEEDS to stop raiding the Senate for talent.

So you prefer someone with no political experience to someone who's busted her butt for her (your) party in the political sphere for almost 40 years now? Very strange loyalties.