Sharice Davids

Sharice Lynnette Davids (/ʃəˈris/; born May 22, 1980) is an American politician, attorney, and former mixed martial artist serving as the U.S. representative from Kansas's 3rd congressional district since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, she represents a district that includes most of the Kansas side of the Kansas City metropolitan area, including Kansas City, Overland Park, Prairie Village, Leawood, Lenexa, and Olathe.

Davids was elected in 2018 and became the first Democrat to represent a Kansas congressional district in a decade. She is the first openly LGBT Native American elected to the United States Congress, the first openly LGBT person elected to the United States Congress from Kansas, and one of the first two Native American women (alongside Deb Haaland) elected to the United States Congress. She is also the second Native American to represent Kansas in Congress, after Charles Curtis, who was Herbert Hoover's vice president. Davids is currently the only Democrat in Kansas' Republican-dominated congressional delegation.

An attorney educated at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and Cornell Law School, Davids was also a professional mixed martial artist in the 2010s.

Davids was born on May 22, 1980, in Frankfurt, West Germany. She is a member of the Ho-Chunk people, and an enrolled member of the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin.

Her maternal grandfather, Fredrick J. Davids, a United States Army veteran, was born into the Mohican Nation Stockbridge-Munsee Band, in Oneida, Wisconsin. Sharice was raised by her single mother, Crystal Herriage, who served in the U.S. Army.

Davids attended Leavenworth High School, Haskell Indian Nations University, Johnson County Community College, the University of Kansas, and the University of Missouri–Kansas City, graduating from the latter with a bachelor's degree in business administration in 2007. She earned her Juris Doctor from Cornell Law School in 2010. She lives in Roeland Park, Kansas, and was endorsed for reelection by The Kansas City Star in 2022.

Davids began competing in mixed martial arts (MMA) as an amateur in 2006, and went professional in 2013. She had a 5–1 win–loss record as an amateur and a 1–1 record as a professional. She tried out for The Ultimate Fighter but did not make it onto the show, leading her to shift her focus away from MMA to travel the U.S. and live on Native American reservations to work with the communities on economic and community development programs.

Professional