Before coming to NARAL Pro-Choice America, Nancy served as a Montana state legislator and State Superintendent of Public Instruction and ran a strong campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000.
Nancy earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Montana State University and a master’s degree in education administration from the University of Montana. Before seeking elected office.
She is also routinely quoted in The New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, and other major national and regional publications.
Nancy Keenan is the President of NARAL Pro-Choice America, formerly known as the National Abortion Rights Action League. (The group changed its name in 2003.)
Keenan worked at Montana State Hospital the summer before she started college in 1970 at Montana State University. During the summers of 1971-73, she worked at the Anaconda Minerals Company, where she was “one of the first female laborers” to shovel ore and carry buckets of boiling copper, the National Organization for Women (NOW) states.
From 1989-2000, she was Montana State Superintendent of Public Instruction. In that position, she publicly made her views clear on a number of issues. For example, when a parent asked that Playboy Magazine be removed from school libraries, Keenan refused to intervene. On the subject of school prayer, Keenan told The Missoulan, “Our government must never infiltrate religion any more than our government should be infiltrated by the Vatican.” On the subject of intelligent design, the theory that posits that an intelligent designer and not mere random evolution is responsible for all life on Earth, Keenan, speaking at a Montana Human Rights Network event, said, “The point is, that’s a private matter that should be held in a private church, funded with private dollars. But the religious right keeps trying to inject it into the political arena.” On the subject of school vouchers, Keenan told The Missoulan: “When the religious right entered the political arena was right after Brown v. Board of Education (the Supreme Court decision outlawing racial segregation) 50 years ago. That was the first time we started hearing about vouchers so that white children didn’t have to go to school with brown children. They wanted to use tax dollars so white children could go to white Christian academies.” She also has said that vouchers are “a war on public schools and school children.”
In 2000, the “lifelong activist” ran as the Democratic candidate for Montana’s lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. The bulwark of Keenan’s campaign coffers was filled by out-of-state donations from Washington, D.C., New York, and San Francisco. Some of her top donors were: the AFL-CIO, the AmeriPAC Association of Trial Lawyers of America, Emily’s List, MoveOn.org, the National Education Association (NEA), People for the American Way, Planned Parenthood, the Teamsters, and the United Auto Workers. Democratic U. S. House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt and former Texas Governor Ann Richards (D) came to stump for her.
After she lost the election, Keenan moved to Washington, D.C., where she worked as a private educational consultant from 2001-03. Then in 2003-04, she became the first full-time Education Policy Director of People For the American Way (PFAW). (In 1995, she was a candidate to be the group’s president and later served on its board of directors.) As a lobbyist for the organization, Keenan focused primarily on attacking tuition vouchers and tax credits. “Government is what brings us together for the common good, not as individuals making money at it alone.” She told the Associated Press: “Why should we be responsible for that [vouchers] as taxpayers, and is that in the best interest of our community? And, fundamentally, is it fair?” she said. “I think, to all of those, the answer is ‘no.’”