Dean Phillips facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Dean Phillips
Co-Chair of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee
In office January 3, 2023 – October 1, 2023 Serving with Veronica Escobar, Lauren Underwood
Leader	Hakeem Jeffries
Preceded by	Debbie Dingell Matt Cartwright Ted Lieu
Succeeded by	Lori Trahan
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Minnesota's 3rd district
In office January 3, 2019 – January 3, 2025
Preceded by	Erik Paulsen
Succeeded by	Kelly Morrison
Personal details
Born	Dean Benson Pfefer (1969-01-20) January 20, 1969 (age 56) Saint Paul, Minnesota, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Spouses	Karin Einisman ​ ​ (m. 1995; div. 2015)​ Annalise Glick ​ (m. 2019)​
Children	2
Relatives	Pauline Phillips (grandmother) Jeanne Phillips (aunt)
Education	Brown University (BA) University of Minnesota (MBA)

Dean Benson Phillips (né Pfefer; born January 20, 1969) is an American politician and businessman who served from 2019 to 2025 as the U.S. representative for Minnesota's 3rd congressional district. A member of the Democratic Party, his district encompasses the western suburbs of the Twin Cities, such as Bloomington, Minnetonka, Edina, Maple Grove, Plymouth, and Eden Prairie. Outside of politics, Phillips is the former co-owner of Talenti gelato, co-owns Penny's Coffee, and has served as president and CEO of his family's liquor business, the Phillips Distilling Company.

Phillips was first elected in 2018, defeating six-term Republican incumbent Erik Paulsen. He became the first Democrat to win the seat since 1958, and was afterward reelected twice by comfortable margins. In November 2023, Phillips announced that he would not run for reelection. Despite consistently voting in support of President Joe Biden's policy positions, he challenged him for the Democratic Party nomination in the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Phillips received four delegates to the 2024 Democratic National Convention, the second-most of any candidate in the primaries, making him the runner-up to Biden for the 2024 Democratic nomination.

Early life, education, and career

Phillips was born to DeeDee (Cohen) and Artie Pfefer in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1969. His biological father was killed in the Vietnam War six months after Phillips was born. His mother married Eddie Phillips, heir to the Phillips Distilling Company and the son of advice columnist Pauline Phillips (popularly known as Dear Abby), in 1972. Eddie adopted Dean, who took the last name Phillips.

In the early 1970s, Phillips moved from Saint Paul to Edina. He attended The Blake School.

Phillips graduated from Brown University in 1991 and is a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. He worked for bicycle equipment and apparel company InMotion for two years, and then joined his family's company's corporate office. He later completed his Master of Business Administration at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management in 2000. After graduation, he was named the president and CEO of his family's organization, Phillips Distilling Company.

Phillips served as the company's president and CEO from 2000 to 2012. He then stepped aside to run one of his other corporate investments, Talenti gelato, until it was sold for an undisclosed amount to Unilever in 2014. In 2016 he founded Penny's Coffee, a coffeeshop chain he still owns, which has two locations in the Twin Cities metropolitan area as of 2022.

U.S. House of Representatives

Elections

2018

Phillips addressing the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party State Central Committee in 2017

Dean Phillips for Congress campaign booth at the Minnesota State Fair

In 2018, Phillips ran for the United States House of Representatives in Minnesota's 3rd congressional district as a Democrat. In the Democratic primary, he defeated former sales associate Cole Young with 81.6% of the vote. Phillips won all three counties in the district.

In the general election, Phillips defeated incumbent Republican Erik Paulsen with 55.6% of the vote. When he took office in 2019, he became the first Democrat to hold this seat since 1961.

2020

Phillips ran for reelection in 2020. He defeated Cole Young in the Democratic primary with 90.7% of the vote and faced off against the Republican nominee, businessman Kendall Qualls. Phillips defeated Qualls with 55.6% of the vote.

2022

Phillips was unopposed in the Democratic primary. In the general election, he defeated the Republican nominee, retired U.S. Navy submarine officer Tom Weiler, with 60% of the vote.

Tenure

According to FiveThirtyEight's congressional vote tracker at ABC News, Phillips voted with President Joe Biden's stated public policy positions 100% of the time, making him more liberal than average in the 117th Congress when predictive scoring (district partisanship and voting record) is used. Phillips voted in favor of Biden's major economic agenda items, including the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the CHIPS and Science Act. During the start of his first term in 2019, the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University placed him 27th out of 435 members in terms of bipartisanship. On March 5, 2020, Phillips received an endorsement from Brady: United Against Gun Violence for working across party lines to pass gun violence prevention bills. Phillips sponsored the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act of 2020, which President Donald Trump signed into law.

In 2021, Phillips received the Bipartisan Policy Center's Bipartisan Legislative Action Award. He authored five provisions in the For the People Act, an anti-corruption and voting rights reform bill that passed the House in March 2021. It also included a major overhaul of campaign finance and redistricting laws. Phillips's provisions for the package included the Voter NOTICE Act, which sought to fight disinformation, and the FIREWALL Act, which sought to strengthen safeguards of online advertising. Phillips participated in the 2021 Congressional Baseball Game at Nationals Park in the District of Columbia. Phillips co-sponsored the Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act, giving Liberians a pathway to citizenship, which Trump signed into law. Phillips co-sponsored H.R. 2307, the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act, which would put a price on carbon and return the proceeds to taxpayers, and H.R. 8395, the EPA Regulatory Authority Act of 2022, which would restore the EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

On March 5, 2022, Phillips was among the lawmakers who met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy about providing additional help to Ukraine in fending off Russia's invasion. On May 10, 2022, Phillips received an A+ on End Citizens United's anti-corruption and voting rights scorecard for "rejecting corporate PAC money and supporting once-in-a-generation anti-corruption and voting rights legislation". Phillips was among the U.S. delegation that attended the 2022 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. After Roe v. Wade (1973) was overturned in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022), Phillips co-sponsored bills to protect women's reproductive rights and reproductive health care across states.

Phillips sponsored the Pathways to Policing Act to provide $50 million to the Department of Justice and local communities in funding to enhance officer recruitment efforts. Another $50 million would go to the Department of Justice to create Minnesota-style Pathways to Policing programs in states across the nation. On July 11, 2022, the Sierra Club endorsed Phillips for reelection to Congress for his environmental advocacy. On June 21, 2023, Phillips sponsored the Allergen Disclosure In Non-Food Articles, or ADINA Act, that would require the labels of drugs to identify ingredients that contain, or are derived from, major food allergens or gluten-containing grains on par with labeling standards that are placed on food products. On July 10, 2023, Phillips co-led the bicameral IDEA Full Funding Act in the House of Representatives. This legislation aimed to ensure Congress fully funds the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Phillips has expressed pride that he is the only member of Congress to have refused all money from lobbyists, special interest groups, and Political Action Committees, and not to have his own leadership Political Action Committee.

On December 20, 2023, Phillips co-sponsored the Medicare for All Act. This marked a departure from his earlier position on healthcare; he said that he had previously been "convinced through propaganda that [single-payer healthcare] was a nonsensical leftist notion". He cited a confluence of factors that shifted his view in favor of Medicare for All, including his experience caring for his daughter who had been diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma, the financial strain of providing health insurance to his employees as a business owner, and the dynamics of representing a congressional district that includes the headquarters of UnitedHealth Group as well as many people who struggle to access healthcare.

On May 17, 2024, Phillips reintroduced the Voter Choice Act, which provides $40 million in federal matching grants, covering up to 50% of the cost for local and state governments that choose to adopt ranked-choice voting. On September 27, he introduced the American Dream Accounts Act of 2024, which would establish in the Social Security Administration a $5,000 account for every American child to be invested in an index fund and vest upon graduation from high school, GED, or waiver for disability. On December 16, Phillips delivered his farewell address on the House floor. In it, he criticized America's two major political parties for "legalized corruption" that prioritizes their own "self-protection over principles" and urged his colleagues to find commonsense solutions and focus on ideas over ideology in solving problems.

Committee assignments

For the 118th Congress:

• Committee on Foreign Affairs
  • Subcommittee on the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia (Ranking Member)
• Committee on Small Business
  • Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Tax and Capital Access
  • Subcommittee on Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Workforce Development

Caucus memberships

• Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus
• New Democrat Coalition
• Problem Solvers Caucus
• Rare Disease Caucus

2024 presidential campaign

In July 2023, Phillips said he was considering challenging President Joe Biden in the 2024 Democratic presidential primaries. In October 2023, he announced that he would step down as co-chair of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee because his views on the 2024 presidential race were incongruent with the majority of his caucus. On October 27, in Concord, New Hampshire, he announced a run for the presidency after he officially filed the paperwork with the Federal Election Commission the previous day. Phillips said he would challenge to gain access to the primary ballots of several states where the Democratic Party had excluded him.

Phillips lost the New Hampshire Democratic primary to Biden, receiving 19.7% of the vote. Biden was a write-in candidate.

On March 6, 2024, Phillips suspended his campaign following Super Tuesday.

Electoral history

Phillips speaking at an event in June 2022

2018

2020

2022

Personal life

Phillips is married and has two daughters from a previous marriage. He is Jewish, and was acknowledged by the Minnesota publication The American Jewish World for serving on the board of Temple Israel in Minneapolis. Phillips's paternal grandmother, Pauline Phillips, was the author of the advice column "Dear Abby", under the pen name Abigail Van Buren. Phillips is friends with actor Woody Harrelson. He met and befriended Harrelson when Harrelson rented his house while shooting the movie Wilson. Harrelson joined Phillips on a trip to Vietnam, where Phillips's father was killed in a helicopter crash. Phillips is a Minnesota Vikings fan.