SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY

Senator Patrick Leahy of Burlington was elected to the United States Senate in 1974 and remains the only Democrat elected to this office from Vermont. At 34, he was the youngest U.S. Senator ever to be elected from Vermont. Born in Montpelier, he graduated from Saint Michael's College in Colchester (1961) and received his Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center (1964). Serving eight years as State's Attorney in Chittenden County, he gained a national reputation for his law enforcement activities and was selected (1974) as one of three outstanding prosecutors in the United States.

Leahy chairs the Judiciary Committee and is also a senior member of the Agriculture and Appropriations Committees. A senior member of the powerful Appropriations Committee, Leahy chairs the Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Foreign Operations and also sits on its Defense, Interior, VA-HUD, Commerce-Justice-State, and Transportation subcommittees.

Leahy is the chief sponsor of the Innocence Protection Act, which would address the growing crisis in the administration of capital punishment. Leahy's death penalty reform package, which has bipartisan support, would reduce the risks that innocent people are executed by providing for post-conviction DNA testing and access to competent legal counsel.

In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, Leahy headed the Senate's negotiations on the 2001 anti-terrorism bill, the USA PATRIOT Act. He added checks and balances to the bill to protect civil liberties, as well as provisions he authored to triple staffing along the US-Canada border, to authorize domestic preparedness grants to states, and to facilitate the hiring of new FBI translators.

Leahy has been the leading U.S. officeholder in the international campaign against the production, export and use of anti-personnel landmines. In 1992, Leahy wrote the first law by any government to ban the export of these weapons. He led efforts in Congress to aid mine victims by creating a special fund in the foreign aid budget. The Leahy War Victims Fund provides up to $12 million a year. He was instrumental in establishing programs to support humanitarian demining, and played a key role in pushing for an international treaty banning anti-personnel mines.

Leahy has crusaded for the protection of privacy rights, copyright protections and freedom of speech on the Internet. The senator is also a co-founder and co-chair of the Congressional Internet Caucus. Leahy chairs the Senate Democratic Task Force on Privacy and has led on several privacy issues, including Internet and medical records privacy. Leahy held Congress's first hearing in 1994 on privacy concerns relating to electronic medical records. Always ranked among the top environmental legislators by the nation's foremost conservation organizations, Leahy successfully opposed attempts to allow oil and gas exploration in wildlife refuges in the United States, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and the Missisquoi Wildlife Refuge in Vermont. Leahy has spearheaded congressional efforts to tackle the dangers of mercury pollution.

Senator Leahy has been married to Marcelle Pomerleau Leahy for 37 years. They have a daughter, two sons, two daughters-in-law and a grandson. Senator and Mrs. Leahy live on a tree farm in Vermont.

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Last updated April 16, 2002