Charles Ellis Schumer (; born November 23, 1950) is an American politician serving as the Senate Majority Leader since January 20, 2021. A member of t...
Charles Ellis Schumer (; born November 23, 1950) is an American politician serving as the Senate Majority Leader since January 20, 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, Schumer is the senior United States senator from New York, a seat to which he was first elected in 1998. He is the current dean of New York's congressional delegation.
A native of Brooklyn and a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, Schumer was a three-term member of the New York State Assembly from 1975 to 1980. Schumer served in the United States House of Representatives from 1981 to 1999, first representing New York's 16th congressional district before being redistricted to the 10th congressional district in 1983 and 9th congressional district ten years later. In 1998, Schumer was elected as a U.S. Senator after defeating three-term Republican incumbent Al D'Amato. He was subsequently reelected in 2004 with 71 percent of the vote, in 2010 with 66 percent of the vote, and in 2016 with 70 percent of the vote.
Schumer was chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee from 2005 to 2009, during which time he oversaw 14 Democratic gains in the Senate in the 2006 and 2008 elections. He was the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, behind Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Whip Dick Durbin. He served as Vice Chairman of the Democratic Caucus in the Senate from 2007 to 2017 and was chairman of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee from 2011 to 2017. Schumer won his fourth term in the Senate in 2016 and was then unanimously elected Democratic leader to succeed Harry Reid, who was retiring. In January 2021, Schumer became Senate Majority Leader, and the first Jewish leader of either chamber of Congress.
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Barry Goldwater
Barry Morris Goldwater (January 2, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was an American politician, businessman, and author who was a five-term Senator from Arizona (...
Barry Morris Goldwater (January 2, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was an American politician, businessman, and author who was a five-term Senator from Arizona (1953–1965, 1969–1987) and the Republican Party nominee for president of the United States in 1964. Despite his loss of the 1964 presidential election in a landslide, Goldwater is the politician most often credited with having sparked the resurgence of the American conservative political movement in the 1960s. He also had a substantial impact on the libertarian movement.Goldwater rejected the legacy of the New Deal and, along with the conservative coalition, fought against the New Deal coalition. A member of the NAACP and active supporter of desegregation in Phoenix, Goldwater voted in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, believing it to be an overreach by the federal government—a decision that considerably anguished him. In 1964, Goldwater mobilized a large conservative constituency to win the hard-fought Republican presidential primaries. Although raised as an Episcopalian, Goldwater was the first candidate of ethnically Jewish heritage to be nominated for President by a major American party (his father was Jewish). Goldwater's platform ultimately failed to gain the support of the electorate and he lost the 1964 presidential election to incumbent Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson by one of the largest margins in history. Goldwater returned to the Senate in 1969 and specialized in defense and foreign policy. As an elder statesman of the party, Goldwater successfully urged President Richard Nixon to resign in 1974 when evidence of a cover-up in the Watergate scandal became overwhelming and impeachment was imminent.
Goldwater narrowly won re-election in 1980 for what would be his final and most influential term in the senate. In 1986, Goldwater oversaw passage of the Goldwater–Nichols Act, arguably his most significant legislative achievement, which strengthened civilian authority in the Department of Defense. The following year, he retired from the Senate and was succeeded by John McCain, who praised his predecessor as the man who "transformed the Republican Party from an Eastern elitist organization to the breeding ground for the election of Ronald Reagan". Goldwater strongly supported the 1980 presidential campaign of Reagan, who had become the standard-bearer of the conservative movement after his "A Time for Choosing" speech. Reagan reflected many of the principles of Goldwater's earlier run in his campaign. The Washington Post columnist George Will took note of this, writing: "We [...] who voted for him in 1964 believe he won, it just took 16 years to count the votes".
Goldwater's views grew increasingly libertarian as he neared the end of his career. After leaving the Senate, Goldwater's views cemented as libertarian. He criticized the "moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others [in the Republican Party] who are trying to... make a religious organization out of it." He lobbied for homosexuals to be able to serve openly in the military, opposed the Clinton administration's plan for health care reform, supported abortion rights, and the legalization of medicinal marijuana.
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