David L. Boren

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credited to the United States Senate Historical Office

David Lyle Boren (born April 21, 1941) was Governor of Oklahoma from 1975 until 1979 and a Democratic United States Senator from 1979 until 1994. He is currently president of the University of Oklahoma.

Biography

Boren is a 1963 graduate of Yale University, where he was elected Speaker of the Yale Political Union and was a member of the college fraternity (and so-called secret society) known as Skull and Bones. He was selected as a Rhodes Scholar and earned a master degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University (1965), serving later as a member of the Rhodes Scholarship selection committee. In 1968, he received a law degree from the University of Oklahoma College of Law.

Boren had several strong mentors: Boren's father Lyle Boren was a United States Representative, and close personal friend and political associate of former U.S. House Speaker Sam Rayburn (Democrat from Texas) and former U.S. House Speaker Carl Albert. His son is U.S. Representative Dan Boren, first elected to Congress in 2004. His daughter, Carrie, is a Los Angeles Episcopal minister and a former actress. He has been married twice, to the late Janna Little and currently to Molly Shi.

In the Senate

In the U.S. Senate, Boren was known as a political centrist and fiscally conservative Democrat, often aligning with other Democratic moderates like Georgia Senator Sam Nunn and Alabama Senator Howell Heflin. Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-AZ), who served with Sen. Boren, publicly stated that Boren should be elected President. Boren's Chief of Staff was a respected Capitol Hill insider, Charles Ward, a former longtime Administrative Assistant to Speaker Albert.

Boren served on the Finance and Agriculture Committees and was also the longest-serving chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Boren authored the National Security Education Act of 1991, which established the National Security Education Program.

Boren decided in 1990 to vote against the Persian Gulf War, surprising most political observers.

In a controversial public mea culpa in a New York Times Op/Ed piece, Boren expressed regret over his vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Somewhat as a result, The Daily Oklahoman, the largest newspaper in Oklahoma, which had encouraged and endorsed Boren's entire career, began calling for his retirement from the U.S. Senate.

After the Senate

Mr. Boren currently serves as President of the University of Oklahoma, and sits on Board of Directors of Texas Instruments.

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