Read the New Frontier Award® announcement
Background
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Cyrus Habib moved with his family to Washington state at the age of eight. He grew up in east King County and graduated from the Bellevue International School before attending Columbia University, Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and Yale Law School where he served as editor of the Yale Law Journal. He is also a Truman Scholar and a Soros Fellow.
He went on to represent east King County in the Washington State House of Representatives and the State Senate, where he served as Democratic Whip and a member of the Democratic leadership team. In 2016, he was elected Washington’s 16th Lieutenant Governor.
A three-time cancer survivor, Lieutenant Governor Habib has been fully blind since age eight. His parents emigrated to the U.S. from Iran before he was born, and he is both the first and only Iranian-American official to hold statewide elected office in the United States.
Lieutenant Governor Habib has championed important issues in Washington throughout his career including sponsoring bills that would guarantee paid sick leave bill for almost all workers and the Washington Voting Rights Act, which would prevent racially polarized voting systems.