Mitch McConnell

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Addison Mitchell McConnell Jr. (born February 20, 1942) is an American politician who currently serves as Kentucky's senior senator and Speaker of the Senate Majority Leader.

McConnell, the second Kentuckian to lead his party in the Senate, is the longest-serving Senate senator from Kentucky in history and the longest-serving Republican Senate president in history. McConnell was first elected to the Senate in 1984 and has been re-elected five times since.

He served as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 1998 and 2000.

McConnell was elected as Majority Whip in the 108th Congress and was re-elected to the position in 2004.

He was elected Senate Minority Leader in November 2006, but he held that position until 2015, when Republicans took over the Senate and made it the Senate Majority Leader. Early in his political career, McConnell was known as a pragmatist and a moderate Republican, but as time passed, he shifted to the right.

He led opposition to tighter campaign finance restrictions, culminating in the Supreme Court's decision in 2009 that partially reversed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (McCain-Feingold).

McConnell continued to support Republican participation for major presidential campaigns, made regular use of the filibuster, and denied several of Obama's judicial candidates, including Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland.

McConnell later described his decision to deny the Garland nomination as "the most significant decision I've made in my entire public career."

Obama received the fewest judicial candidates confirmed in the last two years of a presidency since 1951–52 under McConnell's leadership.

In 2015, McConnell was included in the Time 100 list of the world's most influential people. McConnell endorsed Rand Paul in the Republican primaries in 2016 before ultimately supporting then-presumptive nominee Donald Trump.

McConnell declined to give a bipartisan response to President Barack Obama's call for Russia not to interfere in the forthcoming election after being approached by US intelligence service officials in 2016.

During Trump's presidency, Senate Republicans, under McConnell's leadership, broke records on the number of judicial candidates confirmed; those include Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, who were both confirmed to the Supreme Court.

Early life and education (1942–1967)

McConnell was born on February 20, 1942, to Julia Odene "Dean" (née Shockley; 1919–1993) and Addison Mitchell "A.M. McConnell II (1917–1990). McConnell was born in Sheffield, Alabama, where his grandfather, Robert Hayes McConnell Sr., and his great uncle Addison Mitchell McConnell bought McConnell Funeral Home. He is of Scotish-Irish and English descent. During the American Revolutionary War, one of his ancestors served on the American side.

McConnell's upper left leg was paralyzed by a polio attack in 1944, at the age of two. He received medical attention at the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation. The therapy may have prevented him from being sick for the remainder of his life. McConnell said his family was "almost broke" because of bills related to his illness.

McConnell and his family migrated from Athens, Georgia, where his father, who was in the Army, was stationed at Fort Gordon, in 1950.

His family moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where he attended duPont Manual High School. During his junior year, McConnell was elected student council president at his high school. He earned a B.A. from Omicron Delta Kappa at the University of Louisville. With distinctions, she was awarded an honor in 1964 for her work in political science. He served as president of the College of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity.

McConnell spoke at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Martin Luther King Jr. gave the "I Have a Dream" address. He attended civil rights rallies and interned with Senator John Sherman Cooper in 1964. Cooper's time with him prompted him to run for the Senate later in life, according to him.

McConnell graduated from the University of Kentucky College of Law in 1967, where he was president of the Student Bar Association.

Personal life

McConnell, a Southern Baptist, was baptized at the age of 8. He was married to his first wife, Sherrill Redmon, from 1968 to 1980, and he had three children, Porter, Eleanor (Elly), and Claire. Sherrill became a feminist scholar at Smith College and curator of the Sophia Smith Collection following her separation from McConnell. Elaine Chao, Secretary of Labor under President George W. Bush and Secretary of Transportation under President Donald Trump, is his second wife, who married in 1993.

He founded the James Madison Center for Free Speech in 1997, a Washington, D.C.-based legal defense group.

At the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, McConnell underwent triple heart bypass surgery in February 2003 in relation to blocked arteries.

McConnell was inducted into the Sons of the American Revolution on March 1, 2013.

McConnell was ranked as one of the most influential members of the US Senate in 2018 by the OpenSecrets website, with a net worth of more than $25 million. His personal wealth was raised after his son and his wife were given a $5,000 personal gift from James S. C. Chao after McConnell's mother-in-law's death in 2008.

McConnell's brother-in-law, Gordon Hartogensis, who is married to Chao's sister Grace, was appointed director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), a division of the Labor Department, in May 2019. McConnell confirmed that it had been approved.

McConnell is a member of the Board of Selectors of Jefferson Awards for Public Service.

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Early career (1967–1984)

McConnell joined the United States Army Reserve in Louisville, Kentucky, shortly before the expiration of his educational draft deferment upon graduation from law school. During the Vietnam War, this was a highly coveted position, since Reserve units were largely kept out of combat. 11–12 This was his first day of training at Fort Knox, Kentucky, on July 9, 1967, just two days after passing the bar exam, and his last day was August 15, 1967. He had been diagnosed with optic neuritis shortly after his arrival and was deemed medically ineligible for military service. He was honorably discharged after five weeks at Fort Knox. His brief service has been criticized by his political rivals in the run-up to his reelection bids.

McConnell served as the chief legislative assistant to Senator Marlow Cook in Washington, D.C., in charge of a legislative staff made up of five members as well as assisting with speech writing and constituent services from 1968 to 1970.

McConnell returned to Louisville, Kentucky, where he served for Tom Emberton's bid for Governor of Kentucky, which was unsuccessful. McConnell attempted to run for a seat in the state legislature but was refused because he did not meet the office's residency requirements. He then joined Segal, Isenberg, Sales, and Stewart, a Louisville law firm, for a few years. He taught a night class on political science at the University of Louisville during the same time.

McConnell resurfaced in Washington in October 1974 to fill a position as Deputy Attorney General under President Gerald Ford, where he worked alongside Robert Bork, Laurence Silberman, and Antonin Scalia. Under President Ford, he served as acting United States Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legislative Affairs.

McConnell was elected as the Jefferson County judge/executive, Kentucky's highest political office at the time, defeating incumbent Democrat Todd Hollenbach III, 59 percent to 47 percent. He was re-elected in 1981 against Jefferson County Commissioner Jim "Pop" Malone, 51% to 47 percent, outspending Malone 3–1, and he served in this office until 1984, when he was elected to the Senate.

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