Jenny Durkan : Net Worth, Family, Wife, Partner, Education, Children, Age, Biography and Political Career

Jenny Anne Durkan is an American attorney and politician serving as the 56th mayor of Seattle. She is the daughter of Martin Durkan, who was once considered one of the most powerful politicians in Washington state; like him, she is a member of the Democratic Party. After earning her Juris Doctor from University of Washington School of Law in 1985, Durkan began practicing law as a criminal defence lawyer and civil litigator and had many prominent cases both on behalf of the government and for private parties. During this time she also worked for many nonprofits and advocacy groups, and was briefly Governor Mike Lowry's chief lawyer. In October 2009, President Barack Obama appointed her United States Attorney for the Western District of Washington. She held that position until September 2014.

Durkan was elected the 56th mayor of Seattle in 2017, becoming the city's first female mayor since the 1920s and its second openly LGBT elected mayor. She took first place in the nonpartisan August primary and defeated urban planner and political activist Cary Moon in the November general election. She and her partner, Dana Garvey, have two sons.

Durkan has received criticism for her response to the George Floyd protests in Seattle, and her handling of law enforcement in the so-called Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. In December 2020, Durkan announced that she will not seek reelection after her term as mayor ends.

Jenny Durkan Net Worth

Jenny Durkan Net Worth is $ 1 to 5 Million in 2021.

Jenny Durkan Family

Jenny Durkan was born in Seattle on May 19, 1958. She was raised in a large Irish Catholic family of eight siblings. The family lived on Mercer Island in the mid-1950s and Bellevue in the early 1960s, before settling in rural Issaquah during a time "when there wasn't any development." Her father, Martin Durkan, was a prominent Seattle-area lawyer, Democratic legislator, and lobbyist whose career included 16 years in the state Senate and two unsuccessful runs for governor. Her mother was primarily a homemaker who supported her husband’s career, though she eventually became an executive editor of the Ballard News-Tribune and wrote editorials.

Jenny Durkan Wife / Partner and Children

Durkan identifies as lesbian. She and her partner, Dana Garvey, have two sons. Durkan and Garvey are unmarried and not registered as a domestic couple. Because of this, Durkan did not have to disclose Garvey's financial records during her mayoral campaign. Garvey is the daughter of "a Louisiana telecom magnate who sold his wireless telecommunications firm for $400 million" and worked for AT&T Wireless Services as a senior executive. Her company IconAlytics, Ltd., does art authentication research.

Jenny Durkan Career and Achievement

After graduating, Durkan spent two years in Alaska, teaching high-school English and coaching a girls' basketball team in the Yup’ik Eskimo community through the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. After a summer working as a baggage handler for Wien Air Alaska in St. Mary’s, Alaska as a dues-paying Teamster, Durkan enrolled in the University of Washington School of Law, earning her J.D. degree in 1985. "I wanted to be a lawyer since I was 5 years old," she told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 1992. "When I graduated from law school, my mother said, 'Finally someone is going to pay you to argue."'

Private Practice

While in law school, Durkan participated in a pilot criminal defense clinic, working with the public defender's office to represent individuals charged in Seattle municipal court. She continued the work on a pro bono basis, until she moved to Washington, D.C. to practice law with the firm of Williams & Connolly.

Durkan returned to Seattle in 1991, and established a successful practice focusing on criminal defense and work on behalf of plaintiffs, including the family of Lt. Walter Kilgore, who died in the Pang warehouse fire, the case of Stan Stevenson (a retired firefighter who was stabbed leaving a Mariners game) and the case of Kate Fleming, who died in a flash flood in her Madison Valley basement during the Hanukkah Eve windstorm of 2006.

In 1994 Durkan became executive council and political director to Governor Mike Lowry, making her Lowry's chief lawyer. Lowry had been a campaign manager to and protege of her father in 1972, and Durkan worked for then congressman Lowry in the 1980s. After initially recommending that an independent investigator represent Lowry, Durkan resigned in February 1995 after deputy press secretary Susanne Albright accused him of sexual harassment.

Among Durkan's most prominent cases in private practice was the 2005 recount lawsuit that attempted to undo Governor Chris Gregoire's election in 2004. The Democratic Party turned to Durkan with Gregoire's election "facing an unprecedented trial and Republicans trying to remove her from office." Gregoire's victory was upheld.

In January 2017, Durkan worked with families and other attorneys at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to obtain a federal court order, the day President Donald Trump's first travel ban executive order went into effect, blocking the deportation of people who had arrived at the airport from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

After serving as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington, Durkan joined Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan to head a new Seattle law office specializing in internet and online security issues. At Quinn Emanuel, she also represented FIFA as one of the lawyers conducting an independent internal investigation of issues related to a global corruption case brought by Swiss authorities and the U.S. Justice Department. The investigation and related actions by FIFA's Ethics Committee led to the ousting of longtime FIFA President Sepp Blatter and his key deputy Jerome Valcke, as well as a restructuring of the FIFA Executive Committee and World Cup processes.

Civic Leader

Durkan served on the Washington State Sentencing Guidelines Commission from 1993 to 1996. She served as the first Citizen Observer on the Seattle Police Firearms Review Board from 1997 to 2000 and two Seattle mayors asked her to serve on Citizen Review Committees for the Seattle Police Department. She also played an advisory role on the establishment of the King County Drug Court and the Mental Health Court. She later helped create a specialized drug program in the federal courts in Western Washington.

In September 1994, Durkan left the Schroeter law firm to join the staff of then-Washington Governor Mike Lowry as his lawyer and political adviser. In February 1995, she resigned from Lowry's office and returned to Schroeter.

Durkan is a fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers and maintains an AV rating[clarification needed] from Martindale-Hubbell. She served a three-year term on the Washington State Bar Association Board of Governors. She served on the Merit Selection Committee for the United States District Court, helping select the candidates for appointment to seven vacancies in the federal judiciary in the Western District of Washington.

Durkan served on the nonprofit board of the Center for Women and Democracy from 2000 to 2009, as a founding Board Member for the Seattle Police Foundation from 2002 to 2004, and as the Chair of the Washington State Attorney General's Task Force on Consumer Privacy, which resulted in legislation that became a national model for identity theft protections.

U.S. Attorney

In May 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Durkan to be the U.S Attorney for the Western District of Washington, which covers 19 counties and is home to 4.6 million people (78% of the state's population). She was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate on September 29, 2009, and sworn in on October 1 by Chief U.S. District Judge Robert S. Lasnik.

While U.S. Attorney, Durkan created a Civil Rights Department in the office. It coordinates a variety of civil rights cases and outreach, including a number of cases on behalf of returning veterans. She also helped push police reform efforts in the Seattle Police Department after a Department of Justice investigation found a pattern and practice of excessive use of force.

Upon taking office, Durkan was appointed to serve on the Attorney General's Advisory Committee, which advises the U.S. Attorney General on policy, management, and operational issues at the Department of Justice. She was chair of the Attorney General's Subcommittee on Cybercrime and Intellectual Property Enforcement. Durkan played a leading role in prosecuting cybercrimes, including hacking, skimming and identity theft. Durkan worked with the public schools to ensure internet safety tips for parents and kids were sent home with kids at the beginning of the school year. She also focused on terrorism and national security issues, including the prosecution of two men who plotted to blow up a military recruitment facility in Seattle.

As U.S. Attorney, Durkan used the federal law against felons possessing firearms to crack down on career criminals in Western Washington. Cases referred for felons-with-guns charges increased 45% during her tenure. Durkan pushed "hot spot" initiatives in high-crime areas to address drug and gun sales. These investigations and law enforcement operations resulted in dozens of arrests and weapons confiscations.

In September 2014, when U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced his intention to step down, Durkan was widely discussed as a potential candidate to succeed him. The Obama administration nominated Loretta Lynch.

2011 Raids on Medical Marijuana Dispensaries

After the Drug Enforcement Agency raided ten Seattle medical marijuana dispensaries in November 2011, before recreational marijuana was legalized in Washington state, Durkan faced criticism from marijuana activists. The targeted dispensaries were accused of "flagrant violations" of laws because DEA officers believed that "the shops were fronts for illicit drug dealing and revealed that agents were looking for evidence of drug conspiracies, money laundering and guns." Durkan stated her belief that many medical marijuana users were "fakers". Marijuana activists protested the raids. That same year Durkan urged Washington governor Christine Gregoire to veto a bill that would have legalized medical marijuana, writing that the bill would "authorize conduct contrary to federal law, and thus would undermine the federal government's efforts to regulate the possession, manufacturing, and trafficking of controlled substances."

2012 May Day Vandalism Response

During the 2012 May Day protests in Seattle, masked individuals identified as "black bloc" members vandalized a federal courthouse. By law, destruction of federal government property in excess of $100 is considered a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. In July FBI agents raided the house of several suspects in Portland, Oregon.

The Department of Justice and Durkan's office brought the suspects before a federal grand jury, but were unable to obtain confessions from them. Durkan then asked Judge Richard Jones "to imprison the activists, some for up to five months, in an effort to force them to testify against their peers in the Pacific Northwest’s radical left." Emily Langlie, spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's office in Western Washington, said of the DoJ's actions: "It’s not punitive, it's coercive."

The suspects were held in solitary confinement at the SeaTac Federal Detention Center. The Seattle Human Rights Commission condemned this action, stating, "There is simply no credible reason for their continued detention in solitary confinement...in an environment known to cause serious and lasting psychological harm."

2013 Police Informant Incident

In 2013 Durkan prosecuted Walli Mujahidh and Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif for conspiring to kill US military personnel on July 4, 2011, in a terrorist plot. The FBI and SPD had used a convicted pedophile, Robert Childs, as a paid informant to infiltrate terrorist and other organizations. Childs and Seattle Police detective Samuel DeJesus deleted over 400 messages from Childs's phone before handing the evidence over to Durkan's office, which presiding judge James Robart called "at-best sloppy". Durkan defended using Childs as an informant, saying, "It's not the saints who can bring us the sinners." Childs later said, "After the arrests were made, I was expecting to receive my pardon...Instead, I was told that they couldn't do that for me. What they offered me was money." Childs had also attempted to infiltrate several far-left organizations in Seattle as a paid informant.

2017 Mayoral Election

Durkan announced her candidacy for Seattle mayor on May 11, 2017, shortly after incumbent Mayor Ed Murray ended his reelection campaign and resigned as mayor due to allegations of repeated sexual offence's that were later settled by the city. Durkan was called the "establishment" candidate in the crowded primary field and was endorsed by the King County MLK Labor Council, former Attorney General Eric Holder, the Alliance for Gun Responsibility Victory Fund, Human Rights Campaign, Governor Jay Inslee, Attorney General Bob Ferguson, the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, former EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, former governor and commerce secretary Gary Locke, former Seattle mayor Norm Rice, former King County Executive and Deputy Secretary of U.S. Housing and Urban Development Ron Sims, Murray, some members of the Seattle City Council, labor unions, The Seattle Times, and the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.

Durkan placed first in the August primary election with 51,529 votes (28%), advancing to the general election against urban planner Cary Moon, who received 32,536 (18%), narrowly edging Nikkita Oliver, who received 31,366 (17%). Durkan's over $1 million fundraising haul broke the record for most donors and most money raised in the history of Seattle mayoral campaigns. She outraised Moon 5 to 1, with over $600,000 coming from a political organization sponsored by the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, allowing large corporations such as Amazon, CenturyLink, Comcast, Vulcan, and Starbucks to quietly influence a major local campaign. Murray's political consultant Sandeep Kaushik joined Durkan's campaign and later became a senior adviser to her. Kaushik is also a lobbyist for Comcast and continues to advise Durkan on policy. The day after the November 7 general election, in which Durkan received over 60% of the preliminary votes, Moon conceded.

Mayor of Seattle

Since becoming mayor, Durkan has faced local, regional and global crises, including homelessness, lack of affordable housing, crumbling infrastructure, and the COVID-19 pandemic, much of it stemming from Seattle's rapid population growth over the last decade.

On her second day in office, Durkan signed an Executive Order to create the Seattle Promise College Tuition Program to expand free access to college for Seattle public school students. She then proposed the Families, Education, Preschool, and Promise levy, which would double the number of kids able to attend the Seattle Preschool Program from 1,500 to 2,700 in 2025-26, maintain and expand school-based health centers, create and maintain year-round learning programs to close the opportunity gap from K-12, and fully fund two years of free college. In November 2018, nearly 70 percent of Seattle voters approved the plan.

Durkan was cited as one of the key advocates for the bringing of the NHL team the Kraken to Seattle. In 2018 she co-drafted a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights for people in the industry in Seattle. She also crafted legislation to raise the pay rate for ride share workers and signed new gun restrictions into law. In June 2019, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, Queerty named Durkan one of the Pride50 "trailblazing individuals who actively ensure society remains moving towards equality, acceptance and dignity for all queer people".