Senator Janice Weiner Contact information

Janice Weiner is an American politician and member of the Iowa Senate representing the 45th District. She was born around 1958 and raised in Coralville, Iowa. After graduating from Iowa City West High School, she pursued her higher education at Princeton University in 1980, and Stanford Law School in 1984.

Weiner spent 26 years working in the United States Foreign Service. Her first posting was in East Berlin, both before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall. She also served in Belgium, Turkey, Poland, Canada, Mexico, Germany, and Washington, D.C. After retiring from the Foreign Service, she worked for the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA), the bargaining unit and professional association of the Foreign Service.

Upon retirement, she returned to Coralville and worked as a substitute teacher in 2015 and 2016. Weiner first ran for public office in 2016, but did not win the Iowa City Community School Board seat vacated by Tom Yates. She then ran for an open seat in District 37 of the Iowa Senate in 2018, losing a Democratic Party primary to Zach Wahls.

Weiner was elected to an at-large seat on the Iowa City city council in 2019. She began campaigning for the state senate seat in District 45 in November 2021. Due to redistricting, incumbent state senator Joe Bolkcom was eligible to represent this seat, but had previously announced his retirement. Weiner defeated John Raley in the Democratic Party primary in June 2022, and won the general election against Republican candidate Harold Weilbrenner.

After winning the Iowa Senate election for District 45, Weiner resigned her seat on the Iowa City city council on 9 November 2022. After the resignation becomes effective on 31 December 2022, a successor will be appointed in January 2023.

Weiner is a graduate of Iowa City West High School, Princeton University and Stanford Law School. She has two adopted daughters, whom she raised as a single parent while working overseas. Janice moved home to Iowa in 2015 with her younger daughter, who graduated from West High in 2018, and is raising her young granddaughter.

She currently serves as president of the board of Agudas Achim synagogue, and has held leadership roles at Shelter House, UNA/USA, the Council for International Visitors to Iowa Cities (CIVIC), and the Iowa City Foreign Relations Council. She is a founding member of the grassroots group Potluck Insurgency. She enjoys playing with the Community Band and has worked as a short-term substitute teacher for ICCSD.