Senator Shenna Bellows is Executive Director of The Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine. Previously, she ran Bellows & Company, a nonprofit consulting business, where she worked with organizations such as Sierra Club’s Maine Chapter, Consumers for Affordable Healthcare and the Maine Women’s Lobby. She served as Interim Executive Director of LearningWorks.
In 2014, she was the Democratic nominee for United States Senate in Maine. Prior to her U.S. Senate run, Senator Bellows was executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine. In that leadership role, she developed a track record for building coalitions of Republicans and Democrats alike to pass groundbreaking privacy and civil rights laws. She was a key leader of the successful 2012 ballot campaign to pass same-sex marriage in Maine, and she spearheaded the creation of Republicans for the Freedom to Marry. She co-chaired a successful 2011 statewide ballot campaign for same-day voter registration.
Senator Bellows is a former volunteer with the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps VISTA. She lives with her husband, Brandon, in Manchester, where she serves on the Manchester Conservation Commission.