Dick Durbin

Richard "Dick" Durbin
Senior Senator, Illinois
In office January 1997–Present (9 yrs. in office)
Preceded by	Paul Simon
Succeeded by	Incumbent (2009)
Personal details
Nationality	american
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	Loretta Schaefer

Richard Joseph "Dick" Durbin (born November 21 1944) is currently the senior United States Senator from Illinois and Democratic Whip, the second highest position in the party leadership in the Senate. Durbin is a member of the Roman Catholic church.

Durbin, a lawyer originally from East St. Louis, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982 and served there from 1983 to 1997.

Early life

Durbin was born to an Irish-American father and a Lithuanian-American mother. He graduated from Assumption High School in East St. Louis in 1962. During his high school years he worked at a meat packing plant. He earned a B.S. from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in 1966. He served as an intern in the office of Illinois Senator Paul Douglas during his senior year in college. Durbin earned his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 1969 and was admitted to the Illinois bar later that year.

Service in the U.S. Senate

Durbin became the Democratic Party's candidate for the Senate to replace the retiring Democratic incumbent, Paul Simon — the man that Durbin has called his mentor. The two men had been associated before; while Simon was Lieutenant Governor of Illinois, Durbin was his legal counsel.

Durbin won the election and was easily elected to a second term in 2002. Durbin has a reliably liberal voting record on most issues. Among his legislative causes are asbestos regulation and environmental protection, particularly the protection of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He has also been noted for his work, along with Senators Patrick Leahy and Charles Schumer on blocking judicial nominations, as well as his efforts to avert the closure of military bases in Illinois.

File:DurbinIL.jpg

Senator Durbin (right) meets with Lincoln 2009 Co-Chair Harold Holzeer and Law & Order actor Sam Waterston.

On November 5, 2004, Durbin announced that he had enough committed votes to become the Democratic Whip in the 109th Congress. Prior to this, he had been the Assistant Democratic Floor Leader, a position he was appointed to by former Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle. During his time as the minority whip, he has been noted for his sharp debating skills. Durbin has also been noted for his effectiveness at framing and articulating the Democrats' message, and many have said that he is an effective whip both because of his strategic skills but also because he has assiduously avoided any talk of higher aspirations.

In January of 2005, Durbin changed his longstanding position on sugar tariffs and price supports. After several years of voting to keep sugar quotas and price supports, Durbin now favors abolishing the program. "The sugar program depended on congressmen like me from states that grew corn," Durbin said, referring to the fact that, though they were formerly a single entity, the sugar market and the corn syrup market are now largely separate.[1]

In May 2006, Durbin campaigned to maintain a $0.54 per gallon tarrif on imported ethanol. Durbin justified the tariff by joining Senator Barack Obama in stating that "ethanol imports are neither necessary nor a practical response to current gasoline prices," arguing instead that domestic ethanol production is sufficient and expanding.[2]

Interest group ratings

Senator Durbin's ratings from interest groups indicate how often he votes in agreement with their priorities; his particular scores indicate a liberal-Democratic record. Given his leadership position - especially since the Whip's job is to cajole senators to toe the party line - Durbin's voting record is very similar to the Democratic caucus position.

• NARAL: 100%
• American Civil Liberties Union:60%
• U.S. Chamber of Commerce: 35%
• National Education Association:91%
• League of Conservation Voters: 89%
• Christian Coalition: 0%
• Cato Institute: 17%
• National Rifle Association: F
• American Public Health Association: 100%
• AFL-CIO: 85%
• American Association of Retired Americans: 90%
• National Taxpayers Union:14%

Controversy

Sen. Durbin sparked controversy on June 14, 2005 on the U.S. Senate floor during debate when he compared interrogation techniques used at Camp X-Ray, Guantanamo Bay described in an FBI report with those utilized by 20th century regimes including Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and the Khmer Rouge:

When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here -- I almost hesitate to put them in the record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:

On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold....On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others — that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners."

Republicans demanded an apology, claiming that comparing U.S. actions to the regimes Durbin included was insulting to both the U.S. and to victims of genocide, and provided terrorists with propaganda. Durbin at first refused to apologize, replying that the White House should apologize for fostering an environment which permitted the alleged abuse to occur. In the face of increasing criticism, however, the most influential critic being Democratic Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, he went before the Senate, On June 21, 2005, to tearfully apologize for his statement , saying, "More than most people, a senator lives by his words ... occasionally words fail us, occasionally we will fail words."

Despite the vocal backlash against Durbin's statements, many influential commentators did support him, as did much of his party's base. Notably, Andrew Sullivan, a supporter of the Iraq war, praised Durbin for raising serious moral issues about U.S. policy. Other commentators (including popular liberal commentator Markos Moulitsas Zúniga of Daily Kos) actively condemned Durbin issuing any form of apology to his critics, believing Durbin to have made a mistake in making himself (rather than detainment and torture concerns at GITMO) the focus of media coverage.

External links

• Official website
• United States Congress. "Richard Durbin (id: D000563)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Template:Nndb name
• 2004 campaign finance data
• A pro-Durbin article from The Nation
• An anti-Durbin student group based at the University of Illinois