Chuck Schumer

Charles Schumer
Senior Senator from New York
Incumbent
Assumed office January 6, 1999– Serving with Hillary Rodham Clinton
Preceded by	Al D'Amato
Succeeded by	Incumbent (2011)
Personal details
Nationality	American
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	Iris Weinshall

Charles Ellis "Chuck" Schumer (born November 23, 1950) is currently the senior U.S. Senator from the state of New York, serving since 1999. A Democrat, in 2005, he became chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. In November 2006, he was elected to the new post of Vice-Chairman of the Senate Democratic Caucus. In January 2007, he published a book called Positively American about how Democrats could reclaim middle-class voters.

Biography

Schumer was born in Brooklyn to a Jewish family. His parents were Selma Rosen and Abraham Schumer. He attended public schools in Brooklyn, scoring a 1600 on the SAT, and graduated as the valedictorian from James Madison High School in 1967. Schumer competed for Madison on the It's Academic television quiz show.

Receiving a high draft lottery number that was never reached, Schumer did not serve in the military during the Vietnam War. He attended Harvard College, where he became interested in politics and campaigned for Eugene McCarthy in 1968. After completing his undergraduate degree, he continued to Harvard Law School, earning his Juris Doctor (J.D.) in 1974. Schumer passed the New York State Bar Exam in early 1975 but never practiced law, entering politics instead.

Schumer and his wife, Iris Weinshall, were married September 21, 1980. The ceremony took place at Windows on the World at the top of the north tower of the World Trade Center. Weinshall is the New York City Commissioner of Transportation. The Schumers have two daughters, Jessica and Alison. They live on Prospect Park West in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

While Congress is in session, Senator Schumer lives in a rented house with fellow Democratic politicians George Miller, Dick Durbin, and Bill Delahunt.

State Assemblyman and Congressman

The same year he graduated from Harvard Law, 1974, he ran for and was elected to the New York State Assembly, becoming at age 23 the youngest member of the New York legislature since Theodore Roosevelt. He served three terms. In the decades since, he hasn't lost an election, and has not held any job outside of elected office.

In 1980, 16th District Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman won the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat of Republican Jacob Javits. Schumer ran for Holtzman's vacated House seat and won.

He was reelected eight times from the Brooklyn and Queens-based district, which changed numbers twice in his tenure (it was numbered the 16th from 1981-83, the 10th from 1983-93 and the 9th from 1993).

United States Senator

In 1998, he won the Democratic Senate primary with 51% of the votes against Geraldine Ferraro (21%) and Mark Green (19%). He then received 55% of the vote in the general election, defeating three-term incumbent Republican Al D'Amato (44%). In 2004, Schumer handily won re-election against Republican Assemblyman Howard Mills of Middletown and Conservative Marilyn O'Grady. Schumer outpolled Mills, the second-place finisher, by 2.8 million votes and won reelection with 71% of the vote, the most lopsided margin ever for a statewide election in New York. Schumer won every county in the state except one, Hamilton County in the Adirondacks, the least populated and most Republican county in the state.

Committees

Schumer is Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee. He also currently serves on the following Senate Committees:

• Senate Committee on Finance
• Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
• Senate Committee on the Judiciary
• Senate Committee on Rules and Administration

Legislative Record

While serving in the House of Representatives, Schumer authored the Assault Weapons Ban in 1994 with California Senator Dianne Feinstein, which expired in 2004. The National Rifle Association and other gun groups (see gun politics) have criticized him for allegedly not knowing much about guns, pointing to various errors regarding the subject. Supporters of gun control legislation, however, give him much of the credit for passage of both the Assault Weapons Ban and the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act despite intense lobbying from opponents. The AWB, which restricted certain cosmetic features on semi-automatic rifles, expired in September, 2004 despite attempts by Schumer to extend it. He was one of 16 Senators to vote against the Vitter Amendment which prohibited funding for the confiscation of legally owned firearms during a disaster.

Schumer has recently been criticized by video game players for siding with Senator Joe Lieberman (ID-Connecticut), promoting regulation of video games. He is known to attack Eidos Interactive for the game 25 to Life, urging Sony Computer Entertainment and Microsoft to end their license agreements with Eidos Interactive.

Schumer has also focused on banking and consumer issues, counter-terrorism, and debate over confirmation of federal judges, as well as economic development in New York.

Foreign Policy

Schumer was and remains a supporter of the Iraq War Resolution, although he has since become very critical of President Bush's strategy in the Iraq War suggesting that a commission of ex-generals be appointed to review it. Nat Hentoff of the Village Voice has criticized Schumer for being too indifferent on the issue of torture.

In 2006, Schumer led a bipartisan effort, with the help of Republicans like Congressman Peter T. King (NY), to stop a deal approved by the Bush administration to transfer control of six United States ports to a corporation owned by the government of United Arab Emirates (UAE), Dubai Ports World. (See Dubai Ports World controversy.) The 9/11 Commission reported that despite recent alliances with the U.S., the UAE had strong ties to Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks on World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The measure in the House was H.R 4807, and in the Senate, S. 2333; these were introduced to require a 45 day review of this transfer of ownership. On March 9, 2006, Dubai Ports World withdrew its application to operate the port.

Political Style

Schumer received a "B" on the Drum Major Institute's 2005 Congressional Scorecard on middle-class issues.

Schumer's propensity for publicity is the subject of a running joke amongst many commentators, leading Bob Dole to quip that "the most dangerous place in Washington is between Charles Schumer and a television camera." Schumer frequently schedules media appearances on Sundays, a slow day for news, in the hope of getting television coverage, typically on subjects other than legislative matters.

Schumer has taken a lead role in the investigation of the dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy. Although he was at one point criticized for being a lead investigator of the affair while also chairing the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, such criticism was not sustained after the full dimensions of the controversy became apparent.

Clinton Impeachment

Schumer voted "no" on the impeachment charges of President Bill Clinton in both houses of Congress. Schumer was a member of the House of Representatives (and Judiciary Committee member) during a December 1998 lame-duck session of Congress, voting "no" on all counts in Committee and on the floor of the House. In January 1999, Schumer, as a newly elected member of the Senate, also voted "no" on the two impeachment charges.

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

Schumer is currently the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, part of the Democratic Senate Leadership, with primary responsibility for raising funds and recruiting candidates for the Democrats in the 2006 Senate election. When he took this post, he announced that he would not run for Governor of New York in 2006, as many had speculated he would. This step avoided a potentially divisive gubernatorial primary election in 2006 between Schumer and Eliot Spitzer, then New York's attorney general.

Schumer's tenure as DSCC chair has been successful so far; in the 2006 elections, the Democratic Party gained six seats in the Senate, defeating incumbents in each of those races and regaining control of the Senate for the first time since 2002. Of the closely contested races in the Senate in 2006, the Democrats lost only one, in Tennessee. Senate Majority Leader-to-be Harry Reid persuaded Schumer to serve another term as DSCC chair.

In September 2005, two staff employees of the DSCC illegally obtained a copy of the credit report of the Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, Michael S. Steele, a Republican senatorial candidate, posing as him and using his social security number. Upon learning this, the committee's executive director notified the U.S. attorney's office, and suspended the involved staffers. They are currently under investigation by the FBI. Schumer has not been implicated in the incident, and a spokesperson for the DSCC has said, "Chuck's only involvement was to report this matter to the authorities immediately after first learning about it."

External links

• United States Senator Charles E. Schumer official Senate site
• Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
• United States Congress. "Chuck Schumer (id: s000148)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Federal Election Commission - Charles E Schumer campaign finance reports and data
• New York Times - Charles E. Schumer News collected news and commentary
• On the Issues - Charles Schumer issue positions and quotes
• OpenSecrets.org - Charles E. Schumer campaign contributions
• Project Vote Smart - Senator Charles E. 'Chuck' Schumer (NY) profile
• SourceWatch Congresspedia - Chuck Schumer profile
• Washington Post - Congress Votes Database: Chuck Schumer voting record
• Senator Chuck Schumer interview from NPR, Fresh Air from WHYY, January 30, 2007