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Ira S. Shapiro (born October 14, 1947) is an American lawyer, author, and former diplomat. He served twelve years in senior staff positions in the U.S. Senate, four years in the Clinton Administration, and is the author of a trilogy of books about the U.S. Senate. He ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in the Maryland Democratic primary in 2002 and focused on U.S.-Japan trade relations in private practice.
Senate experience
Shapiro came to work in the Senate in October 1975 as Legislative Legal Counsel to Gaylord Nelson, the Wisconsin Democrat and noted environmentalist who was the Founder of Earth Day. [i] In January 1977, Nelson became chairman of the Special Committee on Official Conduct which was established to write a Senate ethics code of conduct. Shapiro became the staff director and chief counsel of the Special Committee. [ii] The Senate adopted the landmark code on April 1, 1977, by a vote of 86-9, establishing requirements for financial disclosure and limitations on outside earned income for senators and staff and gifts they could receive.[iii]
In 1978, while working as Counsel to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, Shapiro was a principal staff person for several pieces of reform legislation that were enacted into law: the Ethics in Government Act[iv]; the Inspector General Act[v]; and the Presidential Records Act.[vi] He also spearheaded the effort to expand the use of flexible work hours (“flextime”) and increase part-time professional opportunities for civil servants,[vii] and worked on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, authoring a law review article on the subject.[viii]
In 1979, after a brief stint as Counsel to Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd,[ix] Shapiro became staff director and chief counsel to the Senate Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on the District of Columbia and Government Efficiency. Working with the District’s home rule government led by Mayor Marion Barry, the subcommittee originated legislation that was enacted into law to shore up the D.C. pension system.[x] Shapiro also had significant involvement in legislation to fund and complete the 101-mile DC area Metro system. [xi]
When the Republicans took control of the Senate in 1981, Shapiro became staff director and chief counsel to the Governmental Affairs Committee minority under Senator Tom Eagleton from Missouri. He played an important role in the enactment of legislation that established the National Archives and Records Service (NARS) as an independent agency, separating it from the General Services Administration (GSA).[xii] As the committee began consideration of reorganizing the trade functions of the government to address the competitive challenges posed by Japan, Shapiro worked intensively on trade and competitiveness policy issues and took a leave from the Senate to serve as Deputy Issues Coordinator to the presidential campaign of Walter F. Mondale. [xiii]
In January 1985, Shapiro became chief of staff to the newly elected senator from West Virginia, John D. Rockefeller IV (“Jay”), leading his staff for three years. Shapiro remained deeply involved in trade and competitiveness issues and played an important role in helping save Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel, a leading employer for West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, through an unprecedented joint venture with Nisshin Steel of Japan.[xiv]
USTR experience
At the outset of President Bill Clinton’s administration, the new U.S. Trade Representative, Mickey Kantor, named Shapiro to be General Counsel to the office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In that role, Shapiro aided in the negotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in August 1993 through the side agreements on environment and labor that President Clinton had promised and worked for its approval by Congress in November 1993 in the face of significant opposition. Shapiro also helped complete the negotiation of the multilateral Uruguay Round in December 1993 which established new global trade rules for intellectual property and services and created the World Trade Organization. Shapiro continued to play a central role in the successful effort to win legislative approval of the Uruguay Round from Congress.[xv]
In 1995, USTR Kantor named Shapiro chief trade negotiator with Japan and Canada, the two largest trading partners of the U.S. at the time. President Clinton nominated Shapiro for ambassadorial rank, and he was unanimously confirmed by the Senate that June.[xvi] During the first six months of 1995, Shapiro played a leading role in the bitterly contentious negotiation over autos and auto parts with Japan in which the Clinton Administration threatened Japan with $6 billion in tariffs on luxury car imports.[xvii] On June 28, 1995, Kantor and his counterpart, Japanese trade minister Ryutaro Hashinoto (later Prime Minister), announced an agreement resolving the dispute.[xviii] In 1996, Shapiro helped negotiate solutions to disputes over semiconductors[xix] and insurance[xx] with Japan and softwood lumber with Canada.[xxi]
Running for Congress
In 2001, Shapiro ran for the Democratic nomination for Congress in Montgomery County, Maryland, against two well-known state legislators, Chris Van Hollen and Mark Shriver. seeking to unseat the popular Republican incumbent, Connie Morella. Despite “running a superb campaign” (as described by Keith Haller, Montgomery County’s leading political analyst) Shapiro finished third.[xxii]
Tobacco control
From 2001 through 2003, Shapiro served as an advisor to the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids in the effort to negotiate the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the first global health treaty under the auspices of the World Health Organization. Shapiro addressed the delegates from more than 100 countries about how the trade rules should apply to cigarettes, a lethal product.[xxiii] The negotiation of the FCTC concluded successfully in May 2003,[xxiv] and the FCTC has served as a principal catalyst for an extraordinary reduction in smoking globally.[xxv]
U.S.-Japan Relations
After leaving government service, Shapiro continued to focus his work as a lawyer and consultant on U.S.-Japan relations. He served from 2012 through 2017 as chairman of the National Association of Japan-America Societies (NAJAS) and received a commendation from the Japanese foreign minister Fumio Kishida (now Prime Minister) as one of the leading Americans whose work promoted the friendship between the two countries.[xxvi] Shapiro continued to write articles and deliver speeches about the importance of the U.S.-Japan relationship and strongly endorsed America’s participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as our positive competitive alternative to China’s state capitalism.[xxvii]
Trilogy of Senate books
Shapiro has written three books on the U.S. Senate, beginning with The Last Great Senate: Courage and Statesmanship in Times of Crisis (2012); continuing with Broken: Can the Senate Save Itself and the Country? (2018); and concluding with The Betrayal: How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned America (2022).
Dismayed about the long decline in the effectiveness of the Senate, in The Last Great Senate: Courage and Statesmanship in Times of Crisis[xxviii], Shapiro reminds readers of what the Senate accomplished and how it worked during its best years in the 1960’s and 1970’s. The book received critical acclaim with reviewers describing it as “bound to become a classic”[xxix]; “a tour de force;[xxx]” and “a historically and politically artistic work of great brilliance.”[xxxi] It was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.[xxxii]
After the election of Donald J. Trump, Shapiro focused his writing on the threat to U.S. democracy he saw as posed by Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. His second book, Broken: Can the Senate Save Itself and the Country? [xxxiii] which came out in early 2018, is described by former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright as an “unflinching account…[that] takes a large lens to describe how dysfunction in the Senate helped open the door to Donald Trump in the first place.”[xxxiv] Philanthropist and historian David M. Rubenstein interviewed Shapiro about the book at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.[xxxv]
In 2020, as COVID paralyzed the country, Shapiro sharply criticized Trump, describing him as “an unhinged president during a pandemic.”[xxxvi] He called for the nation’s governors to press for Trump’s resignation because of his failed leadership and his increasingly clear intention to stay in office even if he lost the presidential election.[xxxvii]
In response to Shapiro’s view that the Senate could have but failed to stop Trump’s assault on the U.S. democracy even after the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol, Shapiro authored his third book: The Betrayal: How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned America (2022).[xxxviii] Norman J. Ornstein, emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, called “the indictment of McConnell thorough and compelling, a must read for all who want to understand what has happened to the Senate and the entire political system.” Ornstein noted that Shapiro “has become the premier chronicler of the decline of the Senate from the 1970’s to today.”[xxxix] MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell called The Betrayal, “the most important book out there setting the stakes for the 2022 elections.”[xl] Brookings scholar William A. Galston said that Shapiro had completed “an epic trilogy.”[xli]
Current activities
Shapiro continues to write regularly about the Senate and the challenges to U.S. democracy.[xlii] He is the president of Ira Shapiro Global Strategies LLC [xliii] and a senior advisor to the Albright Stonebridge Group, now Dentons Global Advisors/ASG, focusing on Japan and international trade issues.[xliv]
Personal background
Ira Shapiro was born in Bronx, New York, on October 14, 1947. He grew up on Long Island, in Franklin Square where he attended Valley Stream North High School. He went to college at Brandeis University where he graduated in June 1969, magna cum laude with honors in politics. He received a National Science Foundation Special Career fellowship to attend the University of California at Berkeley, where he received an M.A. in political science in 1970. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1973 where he was an editor of the law review and received the Edwin Keedy endowed prize for most scholarly contribution to the law review. He clerked for Judge Alfred L. Luongo of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in 1973-74 and practiced law with the firm of Jenner and Block in Chicago from 1973-75. Mr. Shapiro has been married to Dr. Nancy Sherman Shapiro since 1969; they have two children, Susanna and Brian, and two grandchildren, Jacob and Zev. He and his wife have lived in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., since the end of 1975.
1 Bill Christofferson, The Man from Clear Lake: Earth Day Founder Senator Gaylord Nelson (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2004; John Weingart, “Mr. Shapiro goes to Washington,” Brandeis Magazine, Summer 2012.
2 Senate code of official conduct: report of the Special Committee on Official Conduct, United States Senate, to accompany S. Res. 110, 95th Congress, 1st session, 1977; Senate Report, no. 95-49.
3 Martin Tolchin “Senate, 86-9, Adopts a Strict Ethics Code to Build Confidence,” New York Times, April 2, 1977.
4 Ethics in Government Act, P.L. 95-521; Senate Governmental Affairs Committee reports 95-170 and 95-273, 95th Congress, Second session, 1978.
5 Inspector General Act, P.L. 95-452, 95th Congress, Second session, 1978.
6 Presidential Records Act, P.L. 95-591, 95TH Congress, Second session, 1978.
7 Federal Employees’ Flexible and Compressed Work Schedules Act, P.L. 95-390; Federal Employees Part-Time Career Employment Act, P.L. 95-437, 95th Congress, Second session, 1978.
8 Ira S. Shapiro, “The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act: Legislative Balancing of National Security and the Fourth Amendment,” Harvard Journal on Legislation,” Volume 15, Number 1, December 1977.
9 Ira Shapiro, “Remembering Byrd’s Rule,” Washington Monthly, November 20, 2017.
10 District of Columbia Retirement Reform Act of 1979, P.L.96-122, 96th Congress, First Session (1979).
11 National Capital Transportation Amendments, P.L. 96-184 (1980); Senate passage described in Ira Shapiro, The Last Great Senate: Courage and Statesmanship in Times of Crisis (New York: PublicAffairs, 2012), pp.342-343.
12 Interview of Ira Shapiro, National Archives Oral History Project, studying the period in which the Archives was part of the General Services Administration and the National Archives and Records Act, which made it independent.
13 Bio of Ira Shapiro, prepared for an appearance at The Federalist Society, May 30, 2018; relationship to Walter Mondale described in the acknowledgements to Ira Shapiro, The Betrayal: How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned America (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2022), p. 244.
14 “Nisshin Steel, Wheeling Pact,” New York Times, January 16, 1986.
15 John Maggs, “Clinton Aide Makes Honesty, Humor his Stock in Trade,” The Journal of Commerce, September 6, 1994; Frederick W. Mayer, Interpreting NAFTA: The Science and Art of Political Analysis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998).
16 Hearing before the Senate Finance Committee on the nominations of Ira Shapiro, John D. Hawke, Jr., Linda L. Robertson, Steven G. Kellison, and Marilyn Moon, 104th Congress, 1st session, June 8, 1995.
17 David E. Sanger, “U.S. and Japan Open Last-Ditch Talks on Autos,” New York Times, June 23, 1995.
18 David E. Sanger, “A Deal on Auto Trade; The Agreement; U.S. Settles Trade Dispute, Averting Billions in Tariffs on Japanese Luxury Autos,” New York Times, June 29, 1995.
19 Leslie Helm, “U.S., Japan Reach Accord on a New Semiconductor Trade Agreement, Los Angeles Times, August 3, 1996.
20 Sheryl Wudunn, “Japan and U.S. Resolve Dispute on Insurance,” New York Times, December 16, 1996.
21 Robert D. Hershey, Jr., “U.S. and Canada in Deal that Ends Lumber Dispute,” New York Times, February 17, 1996.
22 Susan Levine, “Underdog Shapiro Has a Resume with Teeth,” Washington Post, August 2009, 2002; Jo Becker, “In Upset, Van Hollen Beats Shriver,” Washington Post, September 11, 2002.
23 Ira S. Shapiro, “Treating Cigarettes as an Exception to the Trade Rules,” SAIS Review, March 2002.
24 Alison Langley, “U.S. to Support World Tobacco Control Treaty,” New York Times, May 19, 2003.
25 Impact of the WHO FCTC on Tobacco Control: perspectives from stakeholders in 12 countries,” National Library of Medicine, National Center for Biotechnology Information, June 28, 2019.
26 Press release, Embassy of Japan, The Award Ceremony of the Foreign Minister’s Commendations in Honor of the 70th anniversary of the End of the War with the United States of America, December 11, 2015.
27 Ira Shapiro, “‘Fast Tracking’ away from the brink,” NIKKEI Asia, July 16, 2015; Ira Shapiro, “President Obama is Right on the TPP,” Washington Monthly, September 23, 2016.
28 Ira Shapiro, The Last Great Senate: Courage and Statesmanship in Times of Crisis (New York: PublicAffairs, 2012).
29 Steven R. Weisman, former New York Times reporter and Editor of Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary.
30 Terence Samuel, “The Last Great Senate: Courage and Statesmanship in Times of Crisis,” by Ira Shapiro, Washington Post, April 20, 2012.
31 Richard A. Baker, U.S. Senate Historian Emeritus.
32 E-mail from Brandon Proia, Acquisitions Editor, UNC Press, confirming the Pulitzer nomination, April 10, 2022.
33 Ira Shapiro, Broken: Can the Senate Save Itself and the Country? (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018).
34 Madeleine K. Albright, former Secretary of State.
35 Ira Shapiro and David Rubenstein at the Newseum, Freedom Forum, February 23, 2019.
36 Ira Shapiro, “As COVID cases top 3 million, it’s past time to end the catastrophic Trump presidency, “USA Today, July 9, 2020.
37 Ira Shapiro, “End this calamitous presidency now,” The Hill, August 10, 2020.
38 Ira Shapiro, The Betrayal: How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned America (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2022).
39 Norman Ornstein, “How Mitch McConnell Made the Senate Even Worse,” Washington Monthly, June 20, 2022; also quoted on the book jacket of The Betrayal.
40 Lawrence O’Donnell, “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell,” MSNBC, May 18, 2022.
41 E-mail from William A. Galston, Brookings Institution Scholar and Wall Street Journal columnist, May 18, 2022.
42 Ira Shapiro, “Mitch McConnell: You’re No Mike Mansfield,” The New Republic, January 13, 2023; Ira Shapiro, “Can the Senate’s comeback continue in an acrimonious 118th Congress,” The Hill, January 4, 2023.
43 www.shapiroglobal.com.
44 Albrightstonebridge.com
[i] Bill Christofferson, The Man from Clear Lake: Earth Day Founder Senator Gaylord Nelson (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2004; John Weingart, “Mr. Shapiro goes to Washington,” Brandeis Magazine, Summer 2012.
[ii] Senate code of official conduct: report of the Special Committee on Official Conduct, United States Senate, to accompany S. Res. 110, 95th Congress, 1st session, 1977; Senate Report, no. 95-49.
[iii] Martin Tolchin “Senate, 86-9, Adopts a Strict Ethics Code to Build Confidence,” New York Times, April 2, 1977.
[iv] Ethics in Government Act, P.L. 95-521; Senate Governmental Affairs Committee reports 95-170 and 95-273, 95thCongress, Second session, 1978.
5 Inspector General Act, P.L. 95-452, 95th Congress, Second session, 1978.
[vi] Presidential Records Act, P.L. 95-591, 95TH Congress, Second session, 1978.
7 Federal Employees’ Flexible and Compressed Work Schedules Act, P.L. 95-390; Federal Employees Part-Time Career Employment Act, P.L. 95-437, 95th Congress, Second session, 1978.
[viii] Ira S. Shapiro, “The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act: Legislative Balancing of National Security and the Fourth Amendment,” Harvard Journal on Legislation,” Volume 15, Number 1, December 1977.
[ix] Ira Shapiro, “Remembering Byrd’s Rule,” Washington Monthly, November 20, 2017.
[x] District of Columbia Retirement Reform Act of 1979, P.L.96-122, 96th Congress, First Session (1979).
[xi] National Capital Transportation Amendments, P.L. 96-184 (1980); Senate passage described in Ira Shapiro, The Last Great Senate: Courage and Statesmanship in Times of Crisis (New York: PublicAffairs, 2012), pp.342-343.
[xii] Interview of Ira Shapiro, National Archives Oral History Project, studying the period in which the Archives was part of the General Services Administration and the National Archives and Records Act, which made it independent.
[xiii] Bio of Ira Shapiro, prepared for an appearance at The Federalist Society, May 30, 2018; relationship to Walter Mondale described in the acknowledgements to Ira Shapiro, The Betrayal: How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned America (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2022), p. 244.
[xiv] “Nisshin Steel, Wheeling Pact,” New York Times, January 16, 1986.
[xv] John Maggs, “Clinton Aide Makes Honesty, Humor his Stock in Trade,” The Journal of Commerce, September 6, 1994; Frederick W. Mayer, Interpreting NAFTA: The Science and Art of Political Analysis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998).
[xvi] Hearing before the Senate Finance Committee on the nominations of Ira Shapiro, John D. Hawke, Jr., Linda L. Robertson, Steven G. Kellison, and Marilyn Moon, 104th Congress, 1st session, June 8, 1995.
[xvii] David E. Sanger, “U.S. and Japan Open Last-Ditch Talks on Autos,” New York Times, June 23, 1995.
[xviii] David E. Sanger, “A Deal on Auto Trade; The Agreement; U.S. Settles Trade Dispute, Averting Billions in Tariffs on Japanese Luxury Autos,” New York Times, June 29, 1995.
[xix] Leslie Helm, “U.S., Japan Reach Accord on a New Semiconductor Trade Agreement, Los Angeles Times, August 3, 1996.
[xx] Sheryl Wudunn, “Japan and U.S. Resolve Dispute on Insurance,” New York Times, December 16, 1996.
[xxi] Robert D. Hershey, Jr., “U.S. and Canada in Deal that Ends Lumber Dispute,” New York Times, February 17, 1996.
[xxii] Susan Levine, “Underdog Shapiro Has a Resume with Teeth,” Washington Post, August 2009, 2002; Jo Becker, “In Upset, Van Hollen Beats Shriver,” Washington Post, September 11, 2002.
[xxiii] Ira S. Shapiro, “Treating Cigarettes as an Exception to the Trade Rules,” SAIS Review, March 2002.
[xxiv] Alison Langley, “U.S. to Support World Tobacco Control Treaty,” New York Times, May 19, 2003.
[xxv] Impact of the WHO FCTC on Tobacco Control: perspectives from stakeholders in 12 countries,” National Library of Medicine, National Center for Biotechnology Information, June 28, 2019.
[xxvi] Press release, Embassy of Japan, The Award Ceremony of the Foreign Minister’s Commendations in Honor of the 70th anniversary of the End of the War with the United States of America, December 11, 2015.
[xxvii] Ira Shapiro, “‘Fast Tracking’ away from the brink,” NIKKEI Asia, July 16, 2015; Ira Shapiro, “President Obama is Right on the TPP,” Washington Monthly, September 23, 2016.
[xxviii] Ira Shapiro, The Last Great Senate: Courage and Statesmanship in Times of Crisis (New York: PublicAffairs, 2012)
[xxix] Steven R. Weisman, former New York Times reporter and Editor of Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary.
[xxx] Terence Samuel, “The Last Great Senate: Courage and Statesmanship in Times of Crisis,” by Ira Shapiro, Washington Post, April 20, 2012.
[xxxi] Richard A. Baker, U.S. Senate Historian Emeritus.
[xxxii] E-mail from Brandon Proia, Acquisitions Editor, UNC Press, confirming the Pulitzer nomination, April 10, 2022.
[xxxiii] Ira Shapiro, Broken: Can the Senate Save Itself and the Country? (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018).
[xxxiv] Madeleine K. Albright, former Secretary of State.
[xxxv] Ira Shapiro and David Rubenstein at the Newseum, Freedom Forum, February 23, 2019.
[xxxvi] Ira Shapiro, “As COVID cases top 3 million, it’s past time to end the catastrophic Trump presidency, “USAToday, July 9, 2020.
[xxxvii] Ira Shapiro, “End this calamitous presidency now,” The Hill, August 10, 2020.
[xxxviii] Ira Shapiro, The Betrayal: How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned America (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2022).
[xxxix] Norman Ornstein, “How Mitch McConnell Made the Senate Even Worse,” Washington Monthly, June 20, 2022; also quoted on the book jacket of The Betrayal.
[xl] Lawrence O’Donnell, “The last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell,” MSNBC, May 18, 2022.
[xli] E-mail from William A. Galston, Brookings Institution Scholar and Wall Street Journal columnist, May 18, 2022.
[xlii] Ira Shapiro, “Mitch McConnell: You’re No Mike Mansfield,” The New Republic, January 13, 2023; Ira Shapiro, “Can the Senate’s comeback continue in an acrimonious 118th Congress,” The Hill, January 4, 2023.
[xliii] www.shapiroglobal.com.
[xliv] Albrightstonebridge.com