Current Position: U.S. Senator (since January 1985)
Credit: Linda Davidson/TWP
Why He Matters
"Jay" Rockefeller, a scion of one of America’s wealthiest and most powerful families, has made a name for himself as a crusader against poverty throughout his 40-plus-year career in public office.
The five-term senator from West Virginia has long been a leading advocate for health-care reform. He is chairman of the Senate Finance subcommittee on Health Care, and played a pivotal role in the debate over health-care reform in the
Obama administration.
Rockefeller, whose first foray into public service was as a VISTA volunteer in rural West Virginia, is a strong ally of the steel and coal industries, two staples of the West Virginia economy. He has also played a major role in attracting new industry and expanding Internet access and technology to West Virginia, which in 2007 was ranked as the nation’s second-poorest state.
The former chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was a vocal critic of the Bush administration’s management of the Iraq war. As ranking member of the committee, he made headlines by clashing with Republicans about whether to investigate how intelligence was used by the Bush administration in the buildup to the Iraq conflict. When the 2006 elections gave Democrats a Senate majority, Rockefeller became chairman of the Intelligence committee and focused on investigating such national security programs as the CIA’s secret prisons and the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program.
Rockefeller broke with his family’s traditional political affiliations — two of his uncles served as Republican governors, one in Arkansas and the other in New York — to join the Democratic Party in the late 1960s.
In 2008, the Capitol Hill newspaper
Roll Call ranked the heir to the Rockefeller oil fortune the fourth wealthiest member of Congress. With an estimated net worth of more than $80.4 million, Rockefeller relied heavily on his family money early in his political career — he spent more than $9 million to win his first Senate race in 1984 — but has since pledged to keep his personal finances out of his political war chest.
“I will not spend one single dime of any money that I have. So that if I don’t raise money, I won’t spend money. I am on exactly the same playing field, so to speak, with anyone else who runs for office,” he said in 2002.
At a Glance
Current Position: U.S. Senator (since January 1985), chairman, Senate Commerce, Science and Transporation Committee
Career History: West Virginia Governor (1976 to 1984); President, West Virginia Wesleyan College (1973 to 1975); West Virginia Secretary of State (1968 to 1972)
Birthday: June 18, 1937
Hometown: New York, N.Y.
Alma Mater: Harvard University, B.A. in Far Eastern Languages and History (1961); Christian University, Tokyo, Japan (1957-1960)
Spouse: Sharon Percy Rockefeller
Religion: Presbyterian
Committees: Committee on Commerce Science and Transportation (Chairman; Committee on Finance (Chairman of Subcommittee on Health Care); Committee on Veterans' Affairs (former chairman) Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (former chairman); Joint Committee on Taxation
DC Office: 531 Hart Senate Office Building Washington D.C. 20510 202-224-6472
State Offices: Beckley (304) 253-9704; Charleston (304) 347-5372; Fairmont (304) 367-0122; Martinsburg (304) 367-0122
Email
Website
Path to Power
Rockefeller was born into a wealthy and politically powerful family, but his own path to power wasn’t a straight shot.
Rockefeller is the only son of John D. Rockefeller III, who oversaw the family’s philanthropic efforts and founded the Asia Society. Jay Rockefeller was raised in New York and graduated from Harvard in 1961 with a degree in Far Eastern Languages and History. Rockefeller lived in Japan for three years before spending a year in Washington, where he oversaw a Peace Corps program in the Philippines.
In 1964, Rockefeller turned his sights to public service, volunteering with Action for Appalachia Youth, part of the Volunteers in Service to America program, in the impoverished community of Emmons, W.Va.
That experience persuaded him to shed his family’s Republican roots and run for office as a Democrat. In 1966, he won a bid to represent Kanawha County, home to Emmons, in the West Virginia House of Delegates.
"It's hard to say what motivates you, what's your philosophy, but it started with that experience," Rockefeller said in 1984.
Two years later, in 1968, he was elected secretary of state. But his successful campaign streak ended in 1972 when he lost a bid to unseat Republican Gov. Arch Moore.
Rockefeller stepped out of the political spotlight for several years, serving as president of West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon. In 1976, he defeated Moore in a rematch election. Rockefeller held off a challenge from Moore in 1980 and was re-elected to a second term as governor.
U.S. Senate
In 1984, at age 47, Rockefeller ran for an open U.S. Senate seat. Rockefeller outspent his opponent, John Raese, a wealthy Republican businessman and newspaper publisher, by 12-to-1 and won the election with 52 percent of the vote.
Rockefeller set his sights on health care reform early in his career. After securing a seat on the Finance Committee, he was appointed to the Pepper Commission on long-term health care and soon became the commission’s chairman. There he pushed to expand health care for people of all ages and increase the number of general practice doctors in poor states.
From the second he was first elected to the Senate, Rockefeller was bombarded with questions about whether he would follow in the footsteps of his uncle, former New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, and run for president. He mulled a run in 1992, but decided against it and endorsed Bill Clinton.
Rockefeller has held a wide range of leadership positions in the Senate. In 2009, he passed the gavel as chairman of the Intelligence Committee to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) to become chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce Science and Transportation.He is the former chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee. Rockefeller is also seated on the Finance Committee, where he chairs the subcommittee on Health Care, and the Joint Committee on Taxation.
Rockefeller handily won his 2008 bid for re-election with 63 percent of the vote even as Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) carried the state.
In His Own Words
"I will not spend one single dime of any money that I have. So that if I don’t raise money, I won’t spend money. I am on exactly the same playing field, so to speak, with anyone else who runs for office," Rockefeller said.
The Issues
Despite his progressive Republican family background, Rockefeller has a strong Democratic record. The liberal Americans for Democratic Action gave him a score of 85 percent in 2008. He has voted with his party 97 percent of the time in the 111th Congress.
Health care and national security have been the focal points of Rockefeller’s Senate career. He has also supported constitutional amendments to allow voluntary school prayer and efforts to tighten FCC regulations to cut back on violence on TV.
Though he initially opposed strip mining, he has become a strong supporter of the steel and coal mining industries. He is the co-chair of the Senate Steel Caucus and is an advocate of “clean coal” as an energy source.
Health -Care Reform
Rockefeller has long been a vocal advocate of health-care reform. He has backed many efforts to expand health care benefits, especially for those in the poor mining communities in his home state.
He has called his efforts to pass the 1992 “Coal Act,” which protected health benefits for retired miners, one of his proudest legislative accomplishments.He also authored a plan that allowed Medicare to contribute to the United Mine Workers of America Combined Benefit Funds to help cover the cost of health insurance and prescription drugs.
Rockefeller was instrumental in passing a 1996 law that prevents insurance companies from turning away clients based on preexisting conditions and in 1997 co-authored legislation that created the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Rockefeller played a crucial role in the 2009 health-reform debate when he rebelled against Finance Chairman Max Baucus' (D-Mont.), one of the his best friend's on the committee, and his health-care compromise, which relied on non-profit cooperatives to decrease health-care costs. Instead, Rockefeller introduced a September 2009 amendment reinstating the public option. About the Baucus compromise, Rockefeller then staed: "There is no way in present form I could vote for it."
National Security and The War in Iraq
Rockefeller voted for the Iraq war resolution in 2002, but has since been a fierce critic of the war, saying his vote was cast on the basis of false intelligence.
“If I had known then what I know now, I would have voted against it. I have admitted that my vote was wrong ...The decision got made before there was a whole bunch of intelligence. I think the intelligence was shaped. And I think the interpretation of the intelligence was shaped,” he said.
As vice chair of the Intelligence committee, Rockefeller drew fire from Democratic colleagues for not opposing more strongly then-chair Sen. Pat Roberts’ (R-Kan.) refusal to investigate how prewar intelligence was used to justify the Iraq invasion.
In 2003, however, a memo surfaced that detailed a proposal to circulate previously undisclosed information about the lead up to the war in order to damage Republicans’ chances in the 2004 elections. Roberts launched an attack against Rockefeller, writing in The Washington Post that the Democrats were planning a partisan attack that undermined the credibility of the committee. Rockefeller said he did not approve the memo, which was written by one of his staff members, or plan to share it with any colleagues. He also shot back with allegations that the prewar intelligence was misused and manipulated by the White House.
“One has to confront the very real possibility that this whole war was predetermined, so that the intelligence had to fit with the policymaking plans. So the Republicans just pounce on this little, pathetic stolen memo as the perfect opportunity to cover up whether there was White House manipulation of intelligence or whether there was [a] predetermined plan for war,” he said.
Rockefeller was also critical of the Bush administration’s stance towards Iran. He likened the White House’s characterization of the nation as a growing threat to the language used in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion.
“To be quite honest, I’m a little concerned that it’s Iraq again. ... This whole concept of moving against Iran is bizarre,” he told The New York Times in 2007.
The Network
Rockefeller works closely with Sen.
Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.). He followed his home state’s senior senator’s lead on many issues during his first years in the Senate and often speaks of his respect for Byrd, the Senate’s longest-serving member. He called Senate Finance Committee Chair
Max Baucus (D-Mont.) one of his best Senate friends, but disagreed with him fiercely on health-care reform in 2009.
Rockefeller threw his support behind
Barack Obama’s nomination in February 2008. The endorsement came as Obama’s national security and foreign policy credentials were under attack by his chief Democratic rival, then-Sen.
Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.). He cited Obama’s opposition to the Iraq war in 2002 as one of the deciding factors in his endorsement.
