Terri Bonoff

Senator Terri Bonoff represents Minnesota Senate District 43, which includes parts of Minnetonka, Medicine Lake, and Plymouth.

She began her public service on the Minnetonka Planning Commission and as a volunteer for the Hopkins Legislative Action Commission. A graduate of Clark University, Worcester, MA, and a former marketing executive at Navarre Corporation, Senator Bonoff chose to leave her career to care for her family of four children, a growing trend among business executives. Please read this informative TIME article about Senator Bonoff and parental leave. As her children entered college years later, Senator Bonoff has dedicated her life to public service.

Watching the current administration enact significant budget cuts prompted Senator Bonoff to run successfully for the Senate in a special election on November 22, 2005. In a short legislative session that began on March 1st and ended on May 22nd, Senator Bonoff was able to pass some important bills that funded early education and reformed education reporting practices as well as uncovering a significant source of revenue for transportation.

After being reelected in 2006, Senator Bonoff went back to work on these issues, passing initiatives that funded classroom technology and enhanced AP and IB programming in our schools. She is currently working on initiatives to expand the role of technology in our classrooms and to reform our education funding system. Her most noteworthy accomplishment since being elected was her work on behalf of domestic violence victims across the state, passing bills to increase peace officer training in this area and to create a standardized no-contact order form.

Senator Bonoff sits on the E-12 Finance and Policy committees, the Transportation Finance and Policy committee, and Business, Industry and Jobs. As Vice-Chair of the E-12 Finance Committee, and Chair of the Senate Early Education Subcommittee, she has taken a leadership role in the area of early education and school technology. She is also a member of two bipartisan caucuses, the 2020 Caucus that addresses aging, finance and a number of other issues as well as the Early Education Core Leaders Caucus.

She recently ran for the DFL endorsement to represent the 3rd District in Congress. After a hard fought campaign that went 8 ballots, Senator Bonoff conceded the race. She recently returned from a National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) annual meeting with fresh perspectives on education and other ways to make Minnesota a national leader once again.