CNN

Fran Drescher is a women's health advocate and a public diplomacy envoy for the State Department.

(CNN) – Is it time to get ready for the Nanny state?

Actress Fran Drescher - who asked last year to be considered as a possible replacement for Hillary Clinton as New York's junior senator – said Tuesday that she's weighing a bid for public office sometime in the next three years.

"I feel very privileged to be able to articulate my positions and my opinions on a myriad of subjects, and now I've been encouraged by many people in the general public, as well as Democratic funders and high level elected officials on both sides of the party line to seriously consider running," the former star of "The Nanny" told reporters at the National Press Club in Washington.

"And so, now I have to decide whether or not I want to run and that would be for 2010 or 2012. And, you know, that's yet to be decided."

The native New Yorker said that she had put herself in the mix for the secretary of State's old Senate seat to draw attention to her work as a health activist. Since a bout with uterine cancer, she has become an advocate for better health care for women. Drescher was named a State Department public envoy on the issue last year, and traveled to Eastern Europe to raise awareness of the issue.

On Monday, she plugged the "Cancer Schmancer Movement," an effort to promote early detection of cancer for women. Her book by the same name was a New York Times best seller.

She may not hold office yet, but Drescher has become a familiar face in the nation's capital: Last month, the actress joined Alicia Keys, Sheryl Crow and other stars for a meeting with Michelle Obama at the White House and a day of visits to DC-area schools.

–CNN's Lauren Pratapas contributed to this report