State Senator Sandra Pappas, President of the Minnesota State Senate

Sandra L. “Sandy” Pappas , DFL – St. Paul, represents District 65. First elected in 1990, she was re-elected in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2012. Prior to that, she was a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives from 1985 to 1991.

Sandra Pappas was elected by the Senate to serve as President of the Senate in 2013. She is the Chair of the State and Local Government Committee and serves on the Capital Investment, Commerce, and Finance Committees. She is also Chair of the Pensions and Retirement Commission and Vice Chair of the Legislative Coordinating Commission.

In addition to her work in the Minnesota Senate, Sandra Pappas also serves on the Board of World Without Genocide and as an alternate Minnesota Commissioner to the Midwestern Higher Education Compact (MHEC). She is Vice President of the Women Legislators’ Lobby and a community faculty member at Metropolitan State University. Sandra Pappas is the founder of Forward Global Women, a non-profit organization that provides leadership training for women in the MENA region (Middle-East and North Africa).

Born in 1949 in Hibbing, Minnesota, Sandra Pappas is a graduate of Metropolitan State University, and has an MPA degree from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She is married to Neal Gosman, and they have three daughters and fifteen grandchildren.