Ellen Tauscher, 7-term congresswoman who grew up in New Jersey, dies

Ellen Tauscher, a New Jersey native who represented California in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1997 until 2009, died on Monday.  She was 67.

Tauscher grew up in East Newark, where her father, John O’Kane, was a councilman in the 1960s and as a ShopRite supermarket employee was the shop steward for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.

She attended public schools in Harrison and the Seton Hall University before getting a job on Wall Street.  She moved to California around 1989 and ousting a two-term Republican congressman in 1996.  Tauscher left the House in 2009 when President Obama nominated her to serve as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs.