Who Is Katrina Lantos Swett?

             My VIP for this week is Katrina Lantos Swett, who has been described as “a Jewish child of Holocaust survivors, human rights advocate, Democrat and Latter-day Saint” by Hanna Seariac. “Her father was the late Tom Lantos, the first Holocaust survivor to serve in Congress and the former chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.” He was also a good friend of President Joe Biden.

            Swett is the current president and CEO of the Tom Lantos Foundation for Human Rights & Justice, which carries on the legacy of her father. She skipped high school and entered college at age 14. She graduated from Yale at age 18 and from law school 2.5 years later. By age 21, she was working on the staff of Senator Joe Biden, an experience that launched her into a lengthy career at the center of American politics.

            In 1980, Swett married Richard Swett, an architect. In 1990, he ran for Congress to represent New Hampshire’s 2^nd District. He won the election and served two terms. While her husband was serving in Congress, Swett began her own political career. President Bill Clinton nominated her husband to serve as ambassador to Denmark. While there, Swett “lectured on U.S. foreign policy at Southern Denmark University and worked with Danish leaders to fight human trafficking.” Along the way, she earned a doctorate in history from the University of Southern Denmark.

In 2002, Swett ran for her husband’s vacated seat but lost the election. In 2008, she ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate, and she ran unsuccessfully for the House in 2010. In 2012, President Barack Obama appointed her to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, where she served for four years. The following is in the article written by Seariac:

Where her father was a trailblazer, Swett is a bridge builder. She’s every bit the fearless advocate that he was. And she, too, is close to Biden, having served as a staff on the Senate Judiciary Committee when he was the chairman. But since that early-career stint in Washington, she’s thrived at the intersection of a number of different worlds. She’s a progressive Democrat, and a fierce advocate for religious liberty; a Jew, and a convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; the wife and daughter of a politician, and a political strategist and former political candidate herself.

This unique makeup has allowed Swett to even more effectively advocate for the things her father dedicated his life to: human rights and global religious liberty. Wherever those battles are being won today, whether domestically or abroad, it’s likely that Swett is somewhere near the front lines.

            “Faith is central to Swett’s life,” but she was not reared in a faith tradition. Her mother later joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but Swett did not attend Church often as a child. Swett’s sister also joined the Church of Jesus Christ. When Swett transferred to Yale as a sophomore, she agreed to attend “one church-related activity each week.” She chose to attend a class in the institute “where Latter-day Saint instructors teach college-level religious instruction.”

            Swett’s institute teacher was Jeffrey R. Holland, the future president of Brigham Young University and member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles for the Church of Jesus Christ. After attending the institute class, Swett asked for baptism. She stated, “If someone set out not to be persuaded of the truthfulness of the gospel, one of the worst decisions you could possibly make would be to attend a class taught by Elder Holland.”

            Swett had simple counsel to anyone “seeking to make a difference and are troubled by human rights violations in the world: ‘find truth. That is the worthy mission of life, to find truth and live in accordance with it.’”