Once a single, teenage mother who relied on food stamps to get by, Lee has fought to expand food stamp coverage. She introduced a bill in April 2008 that would reverse a provision in the 1996 Welfare Reform bill that barred ex-convicts from receiving food stamps. "It is in the country's best interest to provide services to help ex-offenders who have successfully served their sentence transition back into society and properly care for their children," she said.

Welfare

When she was in the California state Assembly, then-Gov. Pete Wilson (R) wanted to cut welfare benefits, saying people who received the benefits would just "have less for a six-pack of beer." Lee spoke out. She called the welfare reform bills "the worst legislation to make it out of the Assembly," and called on her personal experience. "I remembered those days sitting at the welfare office at 401 Broadway, trying to get MediCal and food stamps to feed my kids and keep them healthy," she wrote. "This disdain and disrespect with which I was treated was demoralizing."

Afghanistan and Iraq

When Lee has broken with her party, she has often outflanked it on the left. One of her most famous votes came in September 2001, when she was the lone member of Congress to vote against the authorization of the use of force in Afghanistan following the September 11 terrorist attacks. During her speech on the House floor just days after the attacks, she quoted Sen. Wayne Morse (D-Ore.), one of two congressmen who voted against authorizing the Vietnam War calling it "a mistake." "We are not dealing with a conventional war," she said in the same House floor speech. "We cannot respond in a conventional manner. I do not want to see this spiral out of control."

That wasn't the first time Lee voted against granting the president the use of force. She came to Congress promising to cut defense spending, and, in 1999, she was the only House member to vote against a bill authorizing President Clinton to bomb Serbia. She also followed in Dellums' footsteps in urging the conversion of military bases into civilian-use facilities.But the vote after Sept. 11, 2001, drew considerable criticism and even death threats, and Lee was given police bodyguards.

The vote made Lee a hero of the anti-war movement and didn't derail her re-election. She easily won the 2002 primary against a candidate who criticized that vote, and then won in the general election with 86 percent of the vote against a candidate who said Lee "speaks for Osama bin Laden, not for me."

In October 2002, Lee opposed the use of force in Iraq and offered an alternative bill calling for diplomatic action. She has continued to call for a decrease of troops and funding in Iraq. In 2007, Lee opposed the House Democrats' war funding bill because she said it made too many concessions to Republicans, and she called for a "fully funded withdrawal."

HIV and AIDS

Lee has been at the forefront in the fight against HIV and AIDS in the United States and around the world. She authored a bill that created the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS and regularly pushed for increased funding, winning $15 billion for the prevention and treatment for patients with HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. She fought against provisions that require abstinence-only teaching in exchange for school funding, and sponsored legislation to protect AIDS orphans.

In the U.S., she introduced legislation to provide "comprehensive sex education" in public schools and advocated increased funding for basic prevention and treatment.

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