Kathy E. Manning served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2021-2024, representing North Carolina’s 6th Congressional District. In Congress, she focused on foreign affairs, education and workforce development, healthcare including women’s reproductive rights, and antisemitism. She brought to these areas many years of experience working with national and international organizations as well as local nonprofits and educational institutions.
In Congress, Manning was Vice Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Vice Chair of the Subcommittee on the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, and served on the Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations and the Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, Central Asia, and Nonproliferation. Manning served on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and on theSubcommittee on Higher Education, the Subcommittee on Heath, Employment, Labor, and Pensions, and theSubcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education.
Manning was the lead co-chair of the House Bipartisan Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, and she authored the Countering Antisemitism Act, a comprehensive bipartisan bill to implement key provisions of the U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism. A champion of women’s reproductive rights, Manning authored the Right to Contraception Act, to protect the right to use the full-range of FDA-approved birth control. The bill passed the House in 2022 and was the subject of a discharge petition with more than 200 co-sponsors in 2024. As the Policy Co-Chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, she worked on policies to support and enhance women’s health, education and workforce issues. As the Chair of the New Democratic Coalition’s Workforce Development Task Force, Manning led efforts to analyze and address the work force shortages and challenges facing workers ranging from barriers to education and training opportunities to a shortage of child care. A former immigration attorney, she was one of the original co-sponsors of the Dignity Act, a bipartisan, comprehensive immigration bill to bring our immigration system in line with today’s economic and security needs.
Manning brought more than $57.5 million in community project funding to her district, $90 million in infrastructure funding, $49 million for workforce development opportunities, and returned more than $10.3 million in federal funding to constituents from federal agencies.
Before coming to Congress, Manning was a partner at a major law firm, specializing in general litigation and immigration, before founding her own immigration law firm. She was the first woman to chair the national board of the Jewish Federations of North America and served in leadership roles at the Jewish Agency for Israel, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, and was the founding board chair of Prizma: Center for Jewish Day Schools. At the local level, Manning led key initiatives to strengthen economic development, the arts, and education. She led the successful effort to build a state-of-the-art 3,000 seat performing arts center, the Tanger Center for the Performing Arts, which has been profitable each year since its opening and has helped transformed downtown Greensboro. Manning also served on the Board of the University of North Carolina Greensboro, the Greater Greensboro Chamber of Commerce and chaired the Board of the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro.
Manning is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She graduated from Harvard University, where she founded The Radcliffe Pitches, and the University of Michigan Law School. She and her husband Randall Kaplan have three married children and three adorable grandchildren.