Patrick J. Leahy

Why He Matters

Having represented Vermont since the 1970s, Leahy has risen to become the seventh most senior member in the U.S. Senate, and, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, one of its most powerful. After a cameo in last summer’s biggest hit, The Dark Knight, as “Unintimidated Gentleman at Party,” he may also be the lawmaker most likely to be recognized by fanboys at the mall.

Elected in 1974 at age 34, Leahy remains both the youngest person Vermont has ever sent to the Senate as well as the only Democrat. In the Senate, he has carved out a niche as a staunch advocate for human rights by authoring legislation banning land mines and reforming the death penalty.

After retaking the gavel of the Judiciary Committee in 2007, he wasted no time in challenging the Bush administration. Since his initial vote against authorizing the use of force in Iraq, Leahy has investigated the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, torture of suspected terror suspect and the Justice Department’s firing of nine U.S attorneys.

Liberal Vermont is small (only three electoral votes) and remarkably homogeneous. The “Green Mountain State” has a population of just over 620,000 people. The only state with a smaller population in 2000 was Wyoming. Almost 97 percent of Vermont’s residents are white, compared to the national average of 80 percent; 0.7 percent are African-American, compared to about 13 percent nationally; and 1.1 percent are Hispanic, compared to 14.8 percent nationally.http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/50000.html

Path to Power

Leahy was born to Howard and Alba Leahy on March 31, 1940, in Montpelier, Vt. Born legally blind in one eye, Leahy took up his lifelong hobby of photography, which he has said thankfully only requires one good eye. (His photos have appeared in TIME and USA Today.) He attended St. Michael’s College in Colchester, Vt. and received his B.A. in 1961. He graduated from Georgetown Law School in 1964. In 1962 he married Marcelle Pomerleau, a nurse born in Vermont to French-Canadian parents. The Senator and his wife have three children: Kevin, Alicia, and Mark. Leahy now resides on a tree farm in Middlesex, Vt.

It didn’t take Leahy long to make his way to the Senate. After law school, he was a practicing attorney for two years, until he assumed the elected office of Chittenden County State Attorney. He served in that role until 1974, when he was elected to the U.S. Senate at the age of 34.http://leahy.senate.gov/biography/fastfacts.html

Leahy is the chairman of the powerful Judiciary Committee, which is responsible for issues as diverse as anti-terrorism, immigration policy, trademark and copyright laws and considering presidential nominations for vacancies in the executive and judicial branches. The Judiciary Committee also oversees the federal agencies like Justice Department the FBI. During the last Democratic Senate majority, Leahy was Judiciary chairman from 2001 to 2003 and returned to the helm in Jan. 2007. As a member of the Judiciary panel for almost three decades, Leahy has participated in the confirmation hearings for all nine current Supreme Court justices. Most recently, Leahy voted to approve the nomination of Chief Justice John Roberts but against the nomination of Associate Justice Samuel Alito, whose appointment Leahy considered part of President Bush’s “radical realignment” of government.http://www.nationaljournal.com/alman...le/vt/vts1.php

Leahy is a senior member of the Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry Committee (of which he was formerly chairman), and serves on several of its subcommittees. He is also a member of the Appropriations Committee, and several of its subcommittees, including the Appropriations subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations, where he is chairman.http://judiciary.senate.gov/about/chairman.cfm

The Issues

In the 110th Congress, Leahy voted with his Democratic colleagues 95.4% of the time, hardly missing a vote.http://projects.washingtonpost.com/c...mbers/l000174/ Unlike some legislators, whose pet projects occupy almost all of their time, Leahy has had his hand in everything from halting child obesity to establishing a safety net for Vermont’s milk producers to promoting organic foods to co-chairing the Senate’s National Guard Caucus.

His last several years in Congress have been marked by his 2002 vote refusing to grant the president authorization to use force in Iraq, the measure that served as the precursor to the Iraq war. The Democratic-controlled Senate passed the measure by a vote of 77 to 23, with Senate Democrats splitting 29-21 in favor of authorizing force.http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...53C1A9649C8B63 Thanks to his fight against many of Pres. Bush’s measures, Leahy is seen as an activist Democrat, slightly to the left from his own party on issues of defense.

The Network

Perhaps Leahy's closest allies in the Senate are on the Judiciary Committee that he chairs. He has worked closely with Sens. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.),  Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), and the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

Because Vermont’s delegation to the U.S. Congress is so small (consisting of two senators and one representative), the state’s elected officials find it more necessary than most to collaborate.

Currently, Vermont’s junior senator is Bernie Sanders, an independent and former long-time Vermont House Member. The state’s representative is Peter Welch, a Democrat who won Sanders’ seat in 2006 when Sanders stepped down to run for the Senate seat left empty by the retirement of independent Sen. Jim Jeffords. The three recently worked together to convince congressional negotiators to extend the Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) program, which subsidizes farmers when milk prices fall below a specified threshold. Sen. Leahy endorsed Barack Obama in January 2008, fairly early in the race, calling him, “a president who can re-introduce America to the world and to ourselves.”http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/lea...008-01-17.html  Leahy and Obama had both opposed the Iraq war from its beginning, while Obama’s opponent, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) voted to give Bush the authorization to go to war.http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/01...y3725403.shtml When Clinton lagged behind in pledged delegates, Leahy suggested that Clinton should drop out of the race for party unity’s sake, drawing the Clintons’ ire.