Richard Joseph Durbin (born November 21, 1944) is an American attorney and politician serving as the senior United States Senator from Illinois, a sea...
Richard Joseph Durbin (born November 21, 1944) is an American attorney and politician serving as the senior United States Senator from Illinois, a seat he was first elected to in 1996. He has been the Senate Democratic Whip since 2005, the second-highest position in the Democratic leadership in the U.S. Senate. He will be the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee for the 117th Congress.
Durbin was born in East St. Louis, Illinois. He graduated from the School of Foreign Service and Georgetown University Law Center. Working in state legal counsel throughout the 1970s, he made an unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor of Illinois in 1978. Durbin was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982, representing the Springfield-based 20th congressional district. In 1996, he won election to the U.S. Senate. Durbin has served as the Senate Democratic Whip since 2005, and from 2007 to 2015, served as the Senate Majority Whip.
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Richard Blumenthal
Richard Blumenthal (; born February 13, 1946) is an American attorney and politician currently serving as the senior United States Senator from Connec...
Richard Blumenthal (; born February 13, 1946) is an American attorney and politician currently serving as the senior United States Senator from Connecticut, a seat to which he was first elected in 2010. A member of the Democratic Party, he is ranked as one of the wealthiest members of the Senate, with a net worth of over $100 million. Previously, he served as Attorney General of Connecticut from 1991 to 2011.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Blumenthal attended Riverdale Country School, a private school in the Bronx. He graduated from Harvard College, where he was editorial chairman of The Harvard Crimson. He studied for a year at Trinity College, Cambridge, in England before attending Yale Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal. While at Yale, he was a classmate of Bill and Hillary Clinton. From 1970 to 1976, Blumenthal served in the United States Marine Corps Reserve, where he attained the rank of sergeant.
After law school, Blumenthal passed the bar and served as administrative assistant and law clerk for several Washington, D.C. figures. From 1977 to 1981, he was United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut. In the early 1980s he worked in private law practice, including serving as volunteer counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
He first served one term in the Connecticut House of Representatives from 1985 to 1987; in 1986 he was elected to the Connecticut Senate and began service in 1987. He was elected as Attorney General of Connecticut in 1990, and served for twenty years. During this period political observers speculated about him as a contender for Governor of Connecticut, but he never pursued the office.
Blumenthal announced his 2010 run for U.S. Senate after incumbent Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd announced his retirement. He faced Linda McMahon, a professional wrestling magnate, in the 2010 election, winning by a 12-point margin with 55 percent of the vote. He was sworn in on January 5, 2011. He was assigned to the Senate Armed Services; Judiciary; Aging; and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committees. After the retirement of Joe Lieberman in 2013, Blumenthal became senior senator for the state. He won re-election in 2016 with 63.2% of the vote, becoming the first person to receive more than one million votes in a statewide election in Connecticut.
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