Jones, Stephanie Tubbs

Source:

 Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition

Jones, Stephanie Tubbs

1949–2008
Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio.

Stephanie Jones was born in Cleveland, Ohio. She received a bachelor's degree in 1971 and a law degree in 1974, both from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. She worked as an attorney until 1976, when she began serving as assistant prosecutor in Cuyahoga County. Jones held that position until 1979, then worked as trial attorney for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Cleveland. In 1981 she was elected to serve as a judge in Cleveland Municipal Court, and in 1992 she was appointed Cuyahoga County prosecutor.

In 1998 Jones was elected to the United States House of Representatives from Ohio's Eleventh Congressional District, easily defeating her Republican rival with 79 percent of the vote. She replaced retiring Democrat Louis Stokes, the first black member of Congress from Ohio, who had held that seat for thirty years. Jones was reelected in 2000 and 2002. She was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and served as chairperson of its Housing Task Force. She also sat on the House Ways and Means Committee and its Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.

In August of 2008 Jones died as a result of a ruptured brain aneurysm. She was 58 years old.

See also United States House of Representatives, African Americans in.

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