Los Angeles County Supervisor, Second District (1992-)
Chair of the Board, Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors: 1993-1994
Los Angeles County Supervisor, Fourth District (1979-1980)
California Assemblywoman, 1966-1972
U.S. Representative, 28th District, 1972-1978

Burke's commitments are many: As Supervisor, she chairs the following County Departments-Affirmative Action, Community Development Commission, Human Resources, Museum of Natural History, Parks and Recreation, Superintendent of Schools, Public Library. She is a member of the L.A. Coliseum Commission; and a member of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).

Supervisor Burke also is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Amateur Athletic Foundation (formerly the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee), the National Academy of Public Administration, the National Association of Counties, the Coalition of 100 Black Women, the Trusteeship, the National Advisory Council of the Gene Autry Museum, and the Board of Directors of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund.

She formerly served on the University of California Board of Regents, the Ford Foundation, the Educational Testing Service and as Chair of the Los Angeles branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

In 1972, Supervisor Burke was the first woman elected to Congress from California in 20 years, and the first African American woman ever elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from California. As a Congresswoman, she served on the Appropriations Committee, Departments of State, Justice and Commerce; and on the Select Committee on Assassinations.

Supervisor Burke served as Vice Chair of the 1972 Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Miami Beach, where she presided over the most volatile session in convention history during the absence of DNC Chair Lawrence O'Brien. Other DNC activities include work on the Drafting Subcommittee of the Democratic Platform Committee and the Task Force on Foreign and Defense Policy.

A Los Angeles native, she was born on October 5, 1932 to the late James T. and Lola Watson. She attended Manual Arts High School, earned an undergraduate degree in Political Science from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and a Juris Doctor's degree from the University of Southern California (USC). She was admitted to the California Bar in 1956.

Mrs. Burke is married to William A. Burke, a Los Angeles businessman, and has a daughter, Autumn Roxanne; and a step-daughter, Christine Burke Williams.

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