Who Is Michael Bennet's Wife? New Details On Susan Daggett
She's a lawyer and a teacher.
getty Before being elected to the U.S. Senate from the state of Colorado, Michael Bennet was the managing director for an investment company, a superintendent of the Denver Public Schools and was chief of staff for John Hickenlooper, the Mayor of Denver. He also worked for the then-Ohio governor, Richard Celeste, and after receiving his law degree, was a law clerk as well as Counsel to the U.S. Deputy Attorney General under Bill Clinton.
In 2009, he was appointed by Governor Bill Ritter to fill a vacant Senate seat left by Ken Salazar, who left to become the Secretary of the Interior. And in 2010, he defeated his opponent and won.
Since winning, he’s made his viewpoints clear: he’s been an advocate for stronger gun laws, supports health care reform, was a co-sponsor of the DREAM Act, and supports environmental protection legislation.
But though his job as a Senator puts him in the spotlight, how does his family handle it? Do they agree with his points of view? Who is Michael Bennet’s wife? Here are 6 details to know about Susan Daggett.
1. She has multiple college degrees.
Daggett graduated magna cum laude from Mount Holyoke College. She later went on to receive a law degree from Yale University.
2. She was a lawyer.
After graduating from law school, she practiced law and worked for Earthjustice, a non-profit environmental law firm. But she soon found a passion for teaching and has worked as a lecturer and executive director at the University of Denver.
3. They met on a blind date.
While both were attending Yale, they were set up by a mutual friend. In an interview, she recounted how they came to meet:
“I was two years ahead of Michael in school. I didn’t know him... We met on a blind date a few years later. We were both out of law school. I was clerking for a federal judge in Washington and Michael was clerking for a federal judge in Baltimore. Somebody I knew in my courthouse was engaged to one of Michael’s co-clerks.
I hadn’t been dating anyone seriously. I’m not shy. I figured you have to take some risks in life. So, she sent me an email saying, ‘There’s this guy. You probably know him because you were in law school together.’ She described him as the Editor of the Yale Law School Journal. I told her I knew all those guys, and I wouldn’t want to date any of them...
Michael was totally different than I imagined he would be. He was not arrogant. He was self-deprecating and funny and real. So we had a good time, but didn’t get to know each other that well that night because we were in a group and we were listening to music. That was on a Friday.
The next Monday I got to work and he had given a letter to a friend and had it delivered to me personally at the courthouse. It said, ‘I had a nice time. I hope I get to see you again.’ So, he totally charmed me. Our next date was really our first date. We went to dinner and talked really late. I had done my senior thesis on civil rights issues. His was interested in civil rights and labor. We both had the same interests, so we had a lot to talk about.”
4. Their wedding took place on a farm.
The couple eventually wed in 1997 in Arkansas. According to Daggett:
“We were married in Mariana, Arkansas. It is a very small town, so there is only one place to have a wedding, and it has the reputation of being for whites-only, a country club. We didn’t want that. So, we had 300 people under a big tent in a cow pasture. People came from all over to that cow pasture in Arkansas.
The local muffler guy catered our wedding. We hired a blues band from Memphis; the lead singer is a wonderful African-American vocalist named Joyce Cobb. She said, ‘This is like the United Nations in the Mississippi River Delta.’ We danced the hora (a traditional Jewish dance of celebration) in a cow pasture!”
5. They have three children.
The couple has three daughters: Caroline, Helena, and Ann.
6. She comes from a family of lawyers.
Daggett has a long line of lawyers in her family, but she eventually gave up on law and focused on teaching. “I grew up in a long line of lawyers — my father, uncle, grandfather, great-uncle, and their fathers and uncles for a few generations back were all lawyers — so I think it's in my genetic code,” she said. “That said, I did take a couple of years after college to make sure it seemed like the right choice for me.”
Samantha Maffucci is an associate editor for YourTango who focuses on writing trending news and entertainment pieces. In her free time, you can find her obsessing about cats, wine, and all things Vanderpump Rules.