Current Position: U.S. Senator (since January 2003)
Credit: Ray Lustig/TWP
Why He Matters
A gubernatorial candidate at age 34 and Tennessee governor at 37, Alexander was an early Republican star. He twice ran for president — in 1996 and 2000 — and was on the short list to be vice president under George W. Bush in 2000.
The 7th-generation Tennesseean has worked in just about every sector of government. He was a clerk on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals after law school and education secretary under President George H.W. Bush. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2002 and, thanks to a lifetime in politics, quickly worked his way up through the ranks, becoming chairman of the Senate Republican Conference at the beginning of 2008.
Alexander has argued for a more decentralized federal government but is often a relatively moderate voice in the Republican Party who is willing to work across the aisle. Alexander has been at the forefront of the debate on climate change, and as the son of a principal and a teacher, has also taken a particular interest in education issues.
In October 2009, he warned President Obama during the shrillness over the debate on health-care reform: "don't make an enemies list."
At a Glance
Current Position: Senate Republican Conference Chairman (since January 2008)
Career History: U.S. Senate (January 2003 to present); GOP presidential nominee (1996 and 2000); Education Secretary (1991 to 1993); Tennessee governor (1979 to 1987)
Birthday: July 3, 1940
Hometown: Nashville, Tenn.
Alma Mater: Vanderbilt University, B.A., 1962; New York University, J.D., 1965
Spouse: Honey
Religion: Presbyterian
DC Office: 455 Dirksen, 202-224-4944
State Office: Chattanooga, 423-752-5337; Jackson, 731-423-9344; Knoxville, 865-545-4253; Memphis, 901-544-4224; Nashville, 615-736-5129; Tri-Cities, 423-325-6240
Email: N/A
Web site
Path to Power
Alexander grew up near the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee.
After graduating from Vanderbilt and New York University Law School, Alexander volunteered for Howard Baker’s first Senate campaign in 1966. He worked on Baker’s staff until getting a job in the White House under Bryce Harlow, President Richard Nixon’s congressional liaison. In 1970, Alexander returned to his home state, where he managed the gubernatorial campaign for Winfield Dunn, who became the first Republican Tennessee governor in 50 years.
Governor
In 1974, Alexander ran for governor himself, but his connection to the Nixon White House hurt him and he lost to Democratic Rep. Ray Blanton. Four years later, he ran again. He wore a plaid shirt while walking 1,000 miles across the state and won easily against Rep. Bob Clement (D-Tenn.).
Before leaving office, Blanton issued a large number of pardons that were suspected of being motivated by bribes. A bipartisan group of Tennessee politicians decided to swear Alexander into office three days before the traditional inauguration date. After taking office, Alexander ordered the state highway patrol to seize control of the capitol to ensure that Blanton didn’t try to remain in office. The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that Blanton’s pardons were valid.
Alexander spent two terms as governor, becoming the first Tennessee governor to do so. When he left office, his wife suggested that he take some time off, so they left Tennessee and went to Australia for six months. “I didn’t read an American newspaper for six months. I didn’t see six constituents in six months. I didn’t ever get around to getting my telephone number in Sydney listed in the telephone book,” he said. He described the sabbatical as a tonic and wrote a book about it called, “Six Months Off,” one of seven books penned by the senator (he is also a classic pianist).
Two Presidential Bids
After returning to the U.S., Alexander took a job as president of the University of Tennessee, a job he kept until President George H.W. Bush appointed him education secretary in 1991. In 1996, Alexander launched the first of two consecutive campaigns for president, running on a platform of decentralized federal government and shifting more responsibility to the states. He positioned himself as the Washington outsider against then-Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.), Pat Buchanan and Steve Forbes. Alexander finished third in both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary and dropped out before Super Tuesday.
Alexander’s 2000 presidential campaign was even more ephemeral. He dropped out after finishing sixth in the August 1999 straw poll in Ames, Iowa. He complained that the big money of George W. Bush and Forbes dominated the campaign. Alexander declared the race marked the end of his political career — though he admitted later that he had been interviewed by Dick Cheney to be Bush’s vice president in 2000. During his time outside of politics, Alexander was hugely successful investor, and Roll Call placed him as the 23rd richest member of Congress in 2008.
2002 Senate Bid
But Alexander couldn’t stay away. When Fred Thompson announced in 2002 that he was retiring from the Senate, Alexander filed to run just three days later, saying he felt compelled to serve. “I didn’t need the job,” he said. “I didn’t need to be a little more famous. I only wanted to run if I felt I could make a contribution, and I feel that I can.” Nearly 30 years after he first ran for Tennessee governor, Alexander easily won a seat in the U.S. Senate.
His long political history gave him a little bit of an advantage over other freshmen senators and he snagged a seat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee where he worked closely with then-Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) on education issues. Alexander began gathering votes for what he thought would be an election for majority whip against then-Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.). But Santorum lost his re-election fight in 2006, and Republicans handed the Senate majority to Democrats. Immediately after the election, veteran Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) announced that he was running for minority whip. Lott beat Alexander by one vote in a secret vote.
After Lott decided to resign at the end of 2007, then-Republican Conference Chair Jon Kyl (R-Az.) moved into Lott’s minority whip position, and Alexander decided to run for Kyl’s leadership job. He beat Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), 31 to 16, to claim the helm of the Senate GOP Conference.
The Issues
More moderate than most of his Senate colleagues, but certainly no Democrat, Alexander has called for more decentralized government, arguing that issues like welfare and education should be dictated by the states instead of the federal government. He voted with the Republicans 88.5 percent of the time in the 110th Congress.
Still, Alexander is best known for being willing to compromise with senators on the other side of the aisle. During confirmation hearings for President George W. Bush’s Supreme Court justices, Alexander was one of the first to say he would vote up or down on all nominees, but wouldn’t filibuster anyone. He has been at the forefront of the debate on climate change, calling for tougher restrictions on pollutants when many in the GOP won’t acknowledge global warming as a serious issue, and he has pushed for education reform.
Alexander supported George W. Bush on the Iraq war, but looked for alternatives to try to develop a bipartisan way out. He co-sponsored an amendment to implement the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. He argued in 2007 that the U.S. should gradually shift troops from combat to training missions, a move that he said would allow for gradual troop withdrawal. But he opposed a fixed withdrawal date supported by many Democrats.
The Environment
Shortly after arriving in the Senate, Alexander began to push for clean-air legislation. He argued that smog was bad not only for the earth and for health, but also for Tennessee's state’s economy.
In 2008, he said, "I remember walking into a meeting of the Sevier County Chamber of Commerce a couple of years ago and asking them what their No. 1 issue was, and they unanimously said, 'Clean air. People don't drive down here to see the Smoggy Mountains. They want to see the Great Smoky Mountains.’"
Alexander criticized President George W. Bush’s 2002 Clear Skies legislation for not going far enough to regulate pollutants, and he called for a cap-and-trade system for carbon as a freshman. But Alexander has also argued consistently against windmills, which he calls inefficient and ugly. He helped kill a mandate in the 2005 energy bill that would have required companies to generate ten percent of their energy from renewable sources because of his disdain for windmills. Still, regulating pollutants is an issue he has continued to push. When he was governor of Tennessee, Alexander got Nissan and Saturn to build plants near Nashville, and he now has an electric car.
Education
Both a former education secretary and ex-university president, Alexander has taken a particular interest in education. While governor of Tennessee, he argued for and eventually won merit pay for teachers. In his first Senate term, he helped enact a law that created summer academies for outstanding teachers and students to study history and civics, and he introduced a 2007 bill to build educational opportunities in math and science, calling it “the most important piece of legislation in this session for our country’s future.”
In 2007, Alexander reintroduced a bill to reauthorize Head Start. Alexander has supported No Child Left Behind, but pushes for less federal regulation in lower education. He proposed a measure that would allow states to have more control over their education standards and enforcement, arguing that some states have to “dumb down” classes to comply with the national law.
In October 2009, Alexander wrote a cover story for Newsweek that argued that colleges needed to become more flexible by offering more summer courses, requiring professors to teach more, and encouraging ambitious students to finish their degrees in three years — all of which would help cut cost dramatically. While acknowledging that a three-year plan isn't for everyone, Alexander argued that, like the American car industry, the higher education system in the United States risked falling behind the rest of the world if it did not change practices that haven't "changed much since before the American Revolution, when we were a nation of farmers and students put their books away to work the soil during the summer."
The Economy
Alexander supported the $700 billion bailout in fall 2008, saying, “This is a very serious, very unpleasant problem to deal with. … But we must act next week to solve this situation.” In 2008, his campaign opponent, Bob Tuke (D), tried to use Alexander’s vote against him, calling it “Wall Street welfare.”
The Network
When working as an aide for then-Sen. Howard Baker (R-Tenn.), Alexander lived briefly with another young aide named Trent Lott. He was close to Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson (R), and Thompson gave Alexander a heads-up before announcing his retirement in 2002. Alexander’s chief of staff,
Tom Ingram, is regularly identified as one of Congress’ top 50 aides in Roll Call’s Fabulous Fifty, as is communications director Ryan Loskarn. Ingram has been friends with Alexander for four decades and has been by Alexander's side on and off throughout that time.
