Richard Durbin
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Richard Joseph Durbin (born November 21, 1944) is a Democratic American politician. He currently is the senior U.S. Senator from Illinois and is now Democratic Whip, the second highest position in the party leadership in the Senate.
Durbin, a lawyer originally from East St. Louis, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982 and served there from 1983 to 1997.
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Early life
Durbin graduated from Assumption High School in East St. Louis in 1962. He earned a B.S. from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in 1966. He served as an intern in the office of Illinois Senator Paul Douglas during his senior year in college. Durbin earned his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 1969 and was admitted to the Illinois bar later that year.
Service in the U.S. Senate
Durbin was chairman of the Illinois delegation in 1996. Also in 1996, he became the Democratic candidate for the Senate to replace the retiring Democratic incumbent, Paul Simon — the man that Durbin has called his mentor. The two men had been associated before; while Simon was Lieutenant Governor of Illinois, Durbin was his legal counsel. Durbin won the election and was easily elected to a second term in 2002.
Durbin has a relatively liberal voting record on most issues[1] (http://bolson.org/gov/us/senate/2005/Durbin.html). Among his legislative causes are asbestos regulation and environmental protection, particularly the protection of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
On November 5th, 2004, Durbin announced that he had enough committed votes to become the Democratic Whip in the 109th Congress.
Controversy
Holy Communion for Catholic politicians who disagree with Church policy
As a practicing Catholic who has voted pro-choice since the 1980s, Senator Durbin has been criticized by some catholics for voting counter to church doctrine concerning abortion. This controversy gained national attention during the 2004 elections when several bishops, archbishops and dioceses publicly stated that communion would be denied to Catholic politicians like Senator Durbin and John Kerry as a sanction against their non-compliance with Catholic teachings.
In June of 2004 Senator Durbin released a study claiming that Catholic Republican senators are less likely to vote congruently with church doctrine than Catholic Democrats. The study had been criticized by Republicans as being partisan and by the Catholic church for giving equal importance to social issues, whereas the Catholic Church may attribute varying importance to different issues, hence making a numerical rating of doctrine-compliance misleading.
This controversy remains unresolved. While many Catholics still advocate the denial of the Eucharist to dissident politicians, other influential Catholics such as Cardinal Theodore McCarrick who heads a Catholic task force examining this issue, are reluctant to mar the sanctity of the sacrament by employing it as a political tool.
Criticism of conditions at Guantanamo Bay
Sen. Durbin sparked controversy on June 14, 2005[2] (http://durbin.senate.gov/gitmo.cfm) on the U.S. Senate floor during debate when he compared interrogation techniques that an FBI report said were used at Camp X-Ray, Guantanamo with those used in 20th century concentration camps. "This is the type of thing you would expect from a repressive regime. This is not the type of thing you would expect from the United States. If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others - that had no concern for human beings."
Republicans demanded an apology, claiming that comparing US actions to genocide was insulting to both the US and to victims of actual genocides, and provided al Qaeda with free propaganda. Durbin at first refused to apologize, replying that the White House should apologize for fostering an environment which permitted the alleged abuse to occur. [3] (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/06/17/politics/main702631_page2.shtml) However, on June 17, Durbin issued a statement in which he noted that "I have learned from my statement that historical parallels can be misused and misunderstood. I sincerely regret if what I said caused anyone to misunderstand my true feelings: our soldiers around the world and their families at home deserve our respect, admiration and total support." [4] (http://www.suntimes.com/output/elect/cst-nws-sweet192.html) On June 21, he went before the Senate to tearfully [5] (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050621/ap_on_go_co/guantanamo_durbin_3) apologize for his statement, saying, "More than most people, a senator lives by his words ... occasionally words fail us, occasionally we will fail words." [6] (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,160275,00.html)
His apology continued to garner criticism from some Republicans, who complained that his apology was a "non-apology". They state that Durbin failed to clearly apologize for the content of his message. [7] (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/759iipfs.asp)
External links
- Official website (http://durbin.senate.gov/)
- 2004 campaign finance data (http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.asp?CID=N00004981&cycle=2004)
- A pro-Durbin article from The Nation (http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050214&s=nichols)
- An anti-Durbin Blog site devoted entirely to "Dumping" Durbin (http://www.dumpdickdurbin.blogspot.com/)
| Preceded by: Paul Simon | U.S. Senator (Class 2) from Illinois 1997- | Succeeded by: Incumbent |