Tom Daschle

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Thomas Andrew Daschle (born December 9, 1947), known as Tom Daschle, was a U.S. Senator from South Dakota and the Senate Majority Leader. He is a member of the Democratic Party. He was narrowly defeated on November 2, 2004, by the Republican candidate, John Thune, in his bid for re-election. He is currently a visiting professor at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute at Georgetown University, and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Contents

1 Family background
2 Career in the House of Representatives and the Senate
3 Anthrax case in 2001
4 2004 Senate election
5 2005 and beyond
6 External links

Family background

Daschle was born in Aberdeen, South Dakota, where he grew up in a German American working-class Roman Catholic family as the eldest of four brothers. [link] He became the first person in his family to graduate from college when he earned a political science degree from South Dakota State University in 1969. While attending South Dakota State University, Daschle became a brother of Alpha Phi Omega.

After serving three years as an intelligence officer in the United States Air Force Strategic Air Command, he spent five years as an aide to South Dakota Senator James Abourezk.

Daschle is married to lobbyist and former Federal Aviation Administration official Linda Hall; he has three children from his first marriage: Kelly, Nathan, and Lindsay.

Career in the House of Representatives and the Senate

In 1978, Daschle was elected to the United States House of Representatives, where he served four terms and quickly became a part of the Democratic leadership.

In 1986, Daschle was elected to the Senate in a close victory over incumbent Republican James Abdnor. In his first year, he was appointed to the powerful Senate Finance Committee, an unusual honor for a freshman. In 1988, then-Senate Democratic Leader George J. Mitchell named Daschle the first-ever co-chair of the Democratic Policy Committee, making him the first South Dakotan ever to hold a Senate leadership position.

To enhance his state's economy, Daschle also became the first U.S. Senator to be a full-time economic development director. He was also one of the first members of the U.S. Congress to establish a toll-free telephone line that connects South Dakotans to his Washington, DC office.

In U.S. Senate election, 1992 and U.S. Senate election, 1998, South Dakotans re-elected Daschle to the Senate by overwhelming margins. In 1994, he was chosen by his colleagues to succeed the retiring Senator George Mitchell as Democratic Leader. In the history of the Senate, only Lyndon Johnson had served fewer years before being elected to lead his party. In addition to the Leader's post, Daschle also served as a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. In past Congresses, he has served on the Veterans, Indian Affairs, Finance and Ethics Committees. From January 3, 2001, to January 20, 2001, Daschle became Senate Majority Leader for the first time, as the Senate was evenly divided with 50 members from each major party, and as long as Al Gore was Vice President of the United States, this gave the Democrats the majority in that chamber. Upon the swearing in of the George W. Bush Administration on January 20, 2001, Dick Cheney became Vice President and the Democrats returned to being in the minority and Daschle reverted to being Senate Minority Leader.

However, when Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont announced in May 2001 that he was leaving the Republican caucus to become an independent and would caucus with the Democrats, this returned control of the body to the Democrats and Daschle again became Majority Leader.

Democratic losses in the November 2002 elections returned them to the minority in the Senate in January 2003 and Daschle reverted to being Minority Leader once again.

Anthrax case in 2001

In October 2001 Daschle's office received a letter containing anthrax, becoming a target of the 2001 anthrax attacks. Many of his staffers were diagnosed with inhalation anthrax as well as several of Senator Feingold's staffers.

2004 Senate election

In the 2004 Congressional elections, Daschle lost his seat to Republican challenger and former U.S. Representative John Thune in a bitterly contested battle. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist visited South Dakota to campaign for Thune, breaking an unwritten tradition that one party's leader in the Senate would not campaign directly for the other's defeat. Frist charged Daschle with "obstructionism" for using filibusters to block confirmation of several of President Bush's nominees to the federal judiciary. Some also argued that Stephanie Herseth's election to the state's only House seat hurt Daschle, as voters may not have been comfortable sending an all-Democratic delegation to Congress for the first time in many decades.

Daschle's loss resulted in the first ousting of a majority or minority leader since 1952 when Arizona Senator Ernest McFarland lost his seat to Barry Goldwater. Daschle's Senate term expired on January 4, 2005.

Daschle's defeat was ironic for two reasons:

1. Thune was an aide to former United States Senator James Abdnor, the man Daschle defeated in 1986 to gain his seat in the Senate.

2. Daschle spent a great deal of time and energy campaigning for his fellow Democrat Tim Johnson in 2002, who barely defeated Thune by 524 votes. He argued that by re-electing Tim Johnson, that South Dakota would be better off, because Johnson would help to keep Daschle Majority Leader. But in the end, while Johnson won, other states voted for enough Republicans that Daschle was no longer majority leader. What's more, his whisker-close defeat in 2002 freed Thune up to run against Daschle in 2004. Had Daschle not put his considerable weight to re-electing Johnson, it seems very likely that Thune would have beaten Johnson, leaving Daschle without a realistic challenger in 2004. This would all but certainly have meant he would have been easily re-elected to another term.

2005 and beyond

Daschle has not made intentions clear as to whether or not he will run again for office; however, he has signed on as an advisor to lobbying firm Alston & Bird and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

In late September of 2005, Daschle caught the attention of the media by reactivating his political action committee, changing its name from DASHPAC to New Leadership for America PAC and procuring a speaking slot at the Iowa Democratic Party's annual Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner. He has continued to keep a relatively high profile among Democratic interest groups. These moves are widely interpreted by the media as an exploration of a potential 2008 presidential candidacy. Daschle has said that he will not run for Governor of South Dakota in 2006, and he has ruled out any future bid for U.S. Senate.

On February 13, 2006, Daschle became one of two Democrats (with Rep. Jane Harman of California) to endorse a controversial domestic surveillance program conducted under the authority of President George W. Bush by the NSA.[link]

According to MSNBC Tom Daschle is currently weighing a campaign for the White House in 2008. Dashle will decide by the end of 2006 whether he'll run.[link]

External links

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