Connie Morella

In 1986, Morella ran for the open Congressional seat in Maryland's 8th congressional district. The district was being vacated by Democrat Michael Barnes, who was running for the Democratic nomination to the U.S. Senate. Morella's opponent in the general election was State Senator Stewart Bainum, a multimillionaire business executive who consistently outpolled her throughout most of the campaign.

A major turning point came when Morella unexpectedly won endorsements from The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Post, an unusual feat for a Republican candidate in the race for an open Congressional seat in Maryland. Many analysts credit the endorsements for Morella's narrow victory in November. She was the first woman to hold this seat. Although a Republican in an area that had become heavily Democratic, she proved highly popular among her constituents and won re-election seven times, serving until 2002.

Congresswoman Connie Morella

Morella opposes her party's positions on abortion, gun control, gay rights, and the environmental movement, voted for government funding of contraceptives and needle exchange programs for drug addicts, and favored the legalization of medical marijuana. She received some support from organized labor and opposed many tax cuts. Morella, however, voted against President Clinton's 1993 budget, as all other Congressional Republicans did.[1] She voted against declaring English the official language of the United States[2] and, in 1996, against a bill overwhelmingly approved by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton to combat illegal immigration.

In 1996, Morella was one of only five Republicans to vote against the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act. In 1998, she was one of only three Republicans to vote against renaming the Washington National Airport the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.[3] Morella was the only Republican in the entire Congress to have voted against approving the use of military force in Iraq in 1991 and again in 2002. She was active in human rights, women's health, and domestic violence issues in Congress, and served on the Science and Government Reform Committees.

Morella was U.S. representative to the 1994 U.N. International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo and co-chair of the Congressional delegation to the 1995 U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. Among the legislation she sponsored were the 1992 Battered Women's Testimony Act, which provided funds for indigent women to hire expert testimony in domestic abuse cases, and the Judicial Training Act, which funded programs to educate judges about domestic violence, especially in child custody cases.

Morella came under greater pressure after her party took control of the House in 1994 Congressional elections. Although she signed the Contract with America developed by Newt Gingrich, she had a mixed record supporting the subsequent Republican majority in Congress. She did not openly challenge the new House leadership until 1997 when she voted "present" for Speaker of the House instead of for the incumbent, Newt Gingrich. In 1998, she was one of four Republicans, along with Amo Houghton and Peter T. King of New York and Chris Shays of Connecticut, to oppose all four articles of impeachment against Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal.

As a Republican representing an affluent Democratic district in an increasingly Democratic state, Morella faced a succession of increasingly strong Democratic challengers. While she managed to fend them all off, even in the big Democratic years of 1992, 1996, and 1998, the low popularity of the Republican-controlled Congress gradually undermined her. She tried to portray herself as giving her district a place at the table, but over time, Morella's Democratic opponents claimed that a vote for Morella was a vote to keep Tom DeLay and other Republicans unpopular to district voters in power. It was taken for granted that Morella would be succeeded by a Democrat if she retired. It was also taken for granted that if Morella retired or was defeated in an election, Republicans would have great difficulty taking back the seat.

Maryland Senate President Thomas V. "Mike" Miller stated that he intended to draw Morella's district out from under her after her relatively narrow reelection in 2000. The Democrats controlled both the State Legislature and the Governor's Office in 2000, thus controlling the redistricting for the 2000 Census. Staffers from Senate President Miller, House Speaker Cas Taylor, and Governor Parris Glendening drew new maps to gerrymander out Morella and fellow moderate Republican Bob Ehrlich.[4] One proposal went so far as to divide her district in two, effectively giving one to State Senator Chris Van Hollen and forcing Morella to run against popular Delegate and Kennedy political family member Mark Shriver.

The final redistricting plan was less ambitious but still made the already heavily Democratic 8th district even more Democratic. It restored a heavily Democratic spur of eastern Montgomery County removed in the 1990 redistricting and added nine precincts in Prince George's County from Al Wynn's heavily Democratic 4th district.[4] Although it forced Van Hollen and Shriver to run against each other in an expensive primary, Van Hollen defeated Morella in 2002 with 52 percent of the vote to Morella's 47 percent (Morella would have narrowly won re-election in her previous district, according to election returns). Proving just how Democratic this new district is, the Republicans have only put up nominal challengers in the 8th since Morella's defeat; none of them have ever won more than 40 percent of the vote.

In 2013, Morella signed an amicus curiae brief submitted to the Supreme Court in support of same-sex marriage during the Hollingsworth v. Perry case.[5]

President George W. Bush appointed her United States Permanent Representative to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on July 11, 2003.

She was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate on July 31 and sworn in on October 8 of that year, becoming the first former member of Congress to serve as ambassador to the OECD. She is an honorary board member of the National Organization of Italian American Women who declared Morella a Feminina Excelente.

She officially served as Ambassador from August 1, 2003 to August 6, 2007.[6] In November 2007, she was succeeded by Christopher Egan, son of Richard Egan.