Current Position: U.S. Senator (since January 1993)
Credit: Melina Mara/TWP
Why He Matters
Gregg’s grit and steadfast commitment to conservative values has positioned the long-time fixture of New Hampshire politics as a leader among Senate Republicans. It looks like he will stay in the Senate after a short-lived nomination as commerce secretary in in the Obama administration.
First elected to the Senate in 1992, Gregg held several important positions when Republicans controlled the Senate, including chairmanships of the Senate Budget Committee and the Health, Education and Labor Committee. He has been a vocal critic of policies pushed by his Democratic colleagues since they regained control over the Senate in 2006. He is currently ranking member of the Budget Committee and the second-ranking Republican on Health, Education and Labor.
His efforts to stop Democratic-backed legislation led Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) to call him “the designated ‘see-if-we-can-mess-up-the-legislation’ guy this year.”
Gregg has coasted to victory in his two re-election bids. In 2004, he received the second-highest number of votes in any election in New Hampshire history. In 2000, he faced a 94 year-old Democrat, Doris “Granny D” Haddock, whose claim to fame was walking 3,225 miles across the country to support campaign finance reform. Gregg won the election with 66 percent of the vote.
On Feb. 12, 2009, Gregg announced he was withdrawing his name from nomination as Obama Commerce secretary, citing "irresolvable conflicts" on key policy positions like the economic stimulus package and the census, which the department manages. He also indicated that he will likely not seek re-election in 2010.
"Prior to accepting this post, we had discussed these and other potential differences, but unfortunately we did not adequately focus on these concerns," Gregg said.We are functioning from a different set of views on many critical items of policy.
At a Glance
Current Position: U.S. Senator (since 1993)
Career History: New Hampshire Governor (1988 to 1992); U.S. House of Representatives (1980 to 1988); New Hampshire Executive Councilor (1978 to 1980)
Birthday: February 14, 1947
Hometown: Nashua, N.H.
Alma Mater: Columbia University, B.A., 1969; Boston University, J.D., 1972; Boston University, LL.M, 1975
Spouse: Kathleen MacLellan Gregg
Religion: Protestant
DC Office: 393 Rayburn Senate Office Building, 202-224-3324
State Office: Berlin, 603-752-2604; Concord, 603-225-7115; Manchester, 603-622-7979; Nashua, 603-557-3823; Portsmouth, 603-431-2171
Email: not available
Web site
Path to Power
The Nashua native was born and raised with New Hampshire Republican roots. His father, the late Hugh Gregg, was elected governor in 1952 when Judd was 5 years old, and played a powerful role in preserving New Hampshire’s status as the first-in-the-nation presidential primary.
Gregg graduated from Columbia University in 1969. He studied law at Boston University, where he received his first law degree in 1972, followed by a degree in tax law in 1975. Then Gregg returned to Nashua to practice.
He entered politics in 1978, when he was elected to the Executive Council, a body of elected representatives that approves appointments and expenditures and oversees the activities of the state executive branch. The council, first established in the Colonial era, is a hallmark of the New Hampshire political system.
Gregg worked on Ronald Reagan’s failed 1976 presidential primary campaign and, as a House member in the early 1980s, was a strong supporter of the Reagan’s administration’s policies. Conservative values have been the centerpiece of his campaigns. He won easy victories for the U.S. House in 1980 and New Hampshire governor in 1988.
Gregg was elected to his second gubernatorial term in 1990, then set his sights on the Senate when former Republican Sen. Warren Rudman retired in 1992. Gregg was considered an early favorite because of his strong name recognition and popularity, but tough economic times produced a tight race, which he won by three points with 48 percent of the vote.
U.S. Senate
Gregg soon was welcomed to the party’s Senate leadership. He became chief deputy whip after supporting former Sen. Trent Lott’s (Miss.) 1994 bid for majority whip and was tapped that year by then-Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole (R-Kan.) as co-chair of a group of Republicans responsible for developing the party’s agenda.
Commerce Secretary
According to reports, Gregg offered his own name as a candidate for commerce secretary, praising the president for having "outlined an extraordinarily bold and aggressive, effective and comprehensive plan for how we can get this country moving."
Gregg withdrew his name from consideration on Feb. 12, 1999, citing fundamental differences with the Obama administration on the economic stimulus package and the census, which Commerce manages. "Once it became clear after his nomination that Senator Gregg was not going to be supporting some of President Obama’s key economic priorities, it became necessary for Senator Gregg and the Obama administration to part ways. We regret that he has had a change of heart," the Obama administration stated. At that time, he also indicated he would likely not seek re-election in 2010.
Gregg, who lives in Rye, N.H., with his wife and three children, was reportedly worth between $3 and $10 million in 2007, making him the 21st-wealthiest member of the Senate.
Gregg is known for hard work and solid strategic thinking, but also has a proven lucky streak. In 2005, he won more than $850,000 on a Powerball ticket.
The Issues
Gregg is considered a go-to lawmaker for Republicans on education, health and labor initiatives. He has also been recognized for his work on environmental conservation.
“Most of the issues I tend to push are things I think are at the essence of Republican governance,” he said in 2007.
He has occasionally split from his party on social issues. He was one of six Republicans to vote against a proposed constitutional ban on gay marriage backed by President Bush. He is staunchly against abortion-rights — NARAL gave him a pro-choice score of 0 percent in 2007 — but has been one of a handful of Republicans to support embryonic stem cell research.
He has voted with his party 83.2 percent of the time in the 110th Congress. The American Conservative Union has given him a lifetime rating of 78.39 out of 100 on conservative issues.
The Economy
Gregg is an advocate of cutting federal spending and the growing cost of entitlement programs to reduce the size of the federal deficit. When he became chairman of the Budget Committee in 2004, he pledged to “put the brakes on the growth of entitlements.”
He fought to limit the cost of the Medicare/prescription drug bill to $400 billion over 10 years —the price predicted when it was passed. In 2006, he proposed a “standard, vanilla budget” and again sought to slow the growth of entitlements.
He has said he hopes tackling the cost of entitlement programs, which he has called “the biggest problem we have coming at us,” is at the top of President
Barack Obama’s agenda.
As the ranking minority member on the Senate Budget Committee, Gregg played a key role in the passage of the $700 billion financial bailout plan. Senate Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) named him to represent Senate Republicans in the negotiation.
An early and strong supporter of the plan, Gregg warned that, despite the costs and potential risks of the package, failing to approve the measure would have severe economic consequences.
"This is not going to solve all our tough times. It will keep us out of the massively difficult times," he said. "[An agreement] will not resolve some very serious economic issues before us, but I'm hopeful we can avoid a massive fiscal meltdown.”
Gregg was a member of a congressional committee created to monitor the federal economic bailout, but stepped down in early December 2008, citing a busy Senate schedule.
Education
The former chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee was one of the Senate’s leading supporters of the 2001 legislation that established No Child Left Behind, the cornerstone of President Bush’s education policy. Despite a backlash from critics of the law, Gregg defended the law as necessary for ensuring accountability and high performance in the nation’s schools.
Gregg has worked to increase federal funding for New Hampshire public schools, particularly for special education programs. As chair of the HELP committee, Gregg was instrumental in increasing special education funding by 53 percent, or $15 million, from fiscal year 2001 to fiscal year 2004.
Environment
Gregg has led efforts to preserve and protect the New Hampshire environment. He was an original co-sponsor of the 2006 New England Wilderness Act, which included protection of 34,500 acres of New Hampshire terrain.
Many environmental groups have recognized Gregg for his conservation efforts, but he has also been criticized for his support of drilling for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The New Hampshire Sierra Club named him a Champion of Clean Air. Republicans for Environmental Protection rated Gregg’s environmental record at 64 percent in its 2007 scorecard.
Homeland Security and Foreign Policy
Gregg is the ranking minority member on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Agencies. He is also the former chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Committee, where he was instrumental in increasing federal funding for border security programs and terrorism detection, prevention and response.
In 2000, Gregg used his position as chairman to block $368 million allocated for four U.N peacekeeping missions. He said he withheld the funds to protest the Clinton Administration’s support of the Lome accord, a peace agreement that gave amnesty and power to rebels accused of raping, mutilating and killing thousands of civilians during Sierra Leone’s 8-year civil war.
Gregg was an early supporter of military intervention in Iraq. In early 2002, he called that country the next “logical” battleground in the fight against terrorism because he believed Iraq supported terrorists and maintained a stockpile of biological weapons.Gregg has introduced legislation calling for the Iraqi government to match U.S. reconstruction funding, citing concerns over abuse and excessive spending of taxpayer dollars.
The Network
Gregg has reached across the aisle to work with Democratic stalwart Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). The two, who hail from neighboring states, worked together on No Child Left Behind as well as the 2005 Gulf Coast Recovery and Disaster Preparedness Act.
Gregg had strong ties to the George W. Bush administration. He called President Bush a “good friend” in 2003 and was New Hampshire state party chairman for Bush’s 2000 campaign.
Gregg’s support in Bush’s election and reelection bids surpassed the typical roles of campaigning and fundraising; in debate preparation for both campaigns, Gregg played Bush’s Democratic opponent — Vice President Al Gore in 2000 and Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) in 2004. He also was a stand-in for Gore in 1996 to aid in the debate preparations for Republican vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp.
Gregg also forged a close relationship with Lott, who has praised the New Hampshire senator as being “a strategic thinker with a real desire to see a strategic operation put in place in the Senate.”(28)
Gregg initially backed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s bid for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, endorsing the fellow fiscal conservative almost immediately after he filed the official papers to put his name on the New Hampshire primary ballot.(29)
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