Mitch McConnell

Addison Mitchell "Mitch" McConnell, Jr. (born February 20, 1942), is the senior United States Senator from Kentucky. A Republican, he was chosen by his peers as the Minority Leader in November 2006, making him the top-ranking Republican in the 110th Congress, which convened in January 2007.

Early life and education

Born in Alabama to Julia Shockley and Addison Mitchell McConnell,^[1] and raised in south Louisville, Kentucky, he attended duPont Manual High School and graduated from the University of Louisville College of Arts and Sciences with honors in 1964, where he was student body president. He graduated in 1967 from the University of Kentucky College of Law, where he was elected president of the Student Bar Association.

Career prior to the Senate

McConnell became a member of the 100th Training Unit, U.S. Army Reserve, Louisville, Kentucky, in March 1967, during his final semester of law school, and reported for his six months of active service, primarily for training, in July 1967. Ten days after induction at Fort Knox, Kentucky, McConnell was diagnosed with optic neuritis. He was released from the military in August with an honorable discharge for medical reasons.

McConnell does not list his reserve service in his official biography and several articles have been written in Kentucky newspapers about the rumor that Sen. John Sherman Cooper actually intervened and assisted with McConnell's discharge ^[2]. A letter from John Sherman Cooper to the commanding officer at Ft. Knox is contained in the official papers of John Sherman Cooper, housed at the University of Kentucky Library.

McConnell gained experience on Capitol Hill as an intern under Senator John Sherman Cooper, later as an assistant to Senator Marlow Cook, and was a Deputy Assistant Attorney General under President Gerald R. Ford. From 1978 until his election to the Senate, he was the County Judge-Executive of Jefferson County, which includes Louisville.

U.S. Senate

Initial election and subsequent re-elections

In 1984, McConnell ran against two-term Democratic Senator Dee Huddleston and won by a razor-thin margin — less than half a percentage point. The race wasn't decided until the last returns came in, and it appeared that McConnell won only because of Ronald Reagan's gigantic landslide in that year's presidential election (Reagan won Kentucky by 21 percentage points). Part of McConnell's success came from a series of television campaign spots called "Where's Dee," featuring a group of bloodhounds trying to find Huddleston, implying that Huddleston's attendance record in the Senate was less than stellar. His campaign bumper stickers and television ads asked voters to "Switch to Mitch." Despite the wide perception that 1984 was a disaster for Democrats, McConnell was the only Republican to defeat an incumbent Democratic senator that year.

McConnell faced a tough reelection contest against former Louisville mayor Harvey I. Sloane in 1990, winning by only 4.5 points. He had a slightly easier time in 1996, even as Bill Clinton narrowly carried the state. In 1996, Democrat Steve Beshear was unable to get McConnell to debate him. Bumper stickers were produced which read, "Ditch Mitch." McConnell's television ads warned voters to not "Get Besheared" and included images of sheep being sheared. In 2002, he was reelected with the largest majority by a Republican candidate in Kentucky history. On November 12 of that year, McConnell was unanimously elected Majority Whip of the Senate.

Republican leadership

McConnell was chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the 1998 and 2000 election cycles. In both, Republicans maintained control of the Senate.

McConnell was first elected as Majority Whip in the 108th Congress; he was unanimously re-elected by Republicans in the Senate on November 17, 2004.

Sen. Bill Frist, the Majority Leader, did not seek re-election in the 2006 elections. After Republicans lost control of the Senate in November 2006, they elected McConnell to replace Frist as Republican Leader.

Committees

McConnell currently serves as a senior member of the Appropriations Committee. He is ranking member of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, and Related Programs, a key foreign policy perch, and a senior member of the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry and Rules and Administration Committees.

Political actions and positions

McConnell is a staunch conservative and a master of procedure, but no piece of landmark legislation bears his name. McConnell is widely considered a "kingmaker" in Kentucky Republican politics.

Although he is an ardent conservative, on one issue, Flag Desecration Amendment, he has distanced himself from the vast majority in his party by opposing the amendment.

Perhaps the only issue on which McConnell has a national profile is campaign finance reform, where he's known for having fought it at every turn.^[3] McConnell spearheaded the movement against the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (commonly known as the "McCain-Feingold bill"), calling it "neither fair, nor balanced, nor constitutional." ^[4] His opposition to the bill culminated in the 2003 Supreme Court case McConnell v. Federal Election Commission. He is considered a master of using soft money--a practice which has earned him the nickname "the bagman" in some Democratic circles. ^[5]

McConnell remains one of the strongest supporters of the American invasion of Iraq, which he considers a central part of the "War on Terrorism." He holds the view that the violence in Iraq is perpetrated primarily by al-Qaeda and other international jihadists, who would otherwise be engaged in terrorist actions within the United States. In an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper on January 10, 2007 (after President Bush's announcement of an escalation in troop levels in Iraq), McConnell claimed that the war in Iraq was a "success," because it had prevented terrorist attacks in the U.S. since September 11, 2001. He warned that if the United States withdrew from Iraq, "the terrorists would come after us where we live."

In 1996, as a Senator McConnell, demanded that President Clinton allow White House aides to testify under oath. However, as Chris Wallace explained on April 1, 2007, his McConnell stance on Karl Rove and Harriet Miers testifying under oath in relation to the Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy is contradictory. Wallace asked, "...in 1996, you were saying those White House aides should testify in open hearing. These were White House aides of Bill Clinton, in open hearing under oath. Why shouldn’t the same rules apply for the Bush White House and people like Karl Rove?" McConnell replied, "And what I’m telling you is the president’s going to make that decision."

Fundraising, contributors, and influence

In October 2006, the Lexington Herald Leader published a series of articles based on a six-month examination of McConnell's fundraising.^[6] The paper reported that McConnell had raised nearly $220 million during his Senate career. Most of the money went to the campaigns of his GOP colleagues; in return, the paper said, those colleagues "have rewarded him with power." "He's completely dogged in his pursuit of money. That's his great love, above everything else," said Marshall Wittmann, a former aide to Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., and a Christian Coalition lobbyist in Washington.

The paper found a significant correlation between McConnnell's actions and his donors' agendas. He supported government action to help cigarette makers, Las Vegas casinos, the pharmaceutical industry, credit card lenders, coal mine owners, and others who gave large amounts of money. McConnell has responded that he never allows money to influence him. His donors support him because they like his pro-business, conservative philosophy, he said, so it's hardly proof of corruption when he does what they want, he maintains.^[7]

Personal

McConnell is a member of the Baptist Church. He married Elaine Chao, the current Secretary of Labor, in 1993, and has three grown daughters from his first marriage. McConnell's first wife worked as a librarian for a small college in the Northeast.

In 1992, McConnell teamed with the University of Louisville to create the McConnell Center.

Footnotes

Wikipedia information about Mitch McConnell This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Mitch McConnell". It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer). Help contribute to Americola and edit this article.