Democrat Tom Udall was elected to the House in 1998 and to the Senate in 2008. He belongs to a political clan that is well known in the West and nationally that is sometimes called the “Kennedys of the West.” He is the son of Stewart Udall, the Arizona congressman (1955-61) and U.S. Interior secretary (1961-69), and the nephew of Morris “Mo” Udall, an Arizona congressman (1961-91). He is also the first cousin of Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado. Read More

Democrat Tom Udall was elected to the House in 1998 and to the Senate in 2008. He belongs to a political clan that is well known in the West and nationally that is sometimes called the “Kennedys of the West.” He is the son of Stewart Udall, the Arizona congressman (1955-61) and U.S. Interior secretary (1961-69), and the nephew of Morris “Mo” Udall, an Arizona congressman (1961-91). He is also the first cousin of Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado.

Tom Udall grew up in Tucson and in McLean, Va., a well-to-do Washington, D.C., suburb. He went to Prescott College in Arizona, got a degree at Cambridge University in England and graduated from the University of New Mexico Law School. He worked as a law clerk for a federal judge, then as a lawyer in the New Mexico state government before going into private law practice. Politics was obviously on his mind. He ran for Congress in 1982, when the 3rd District was newly created, and finished last among four candidates, with 13% of the vote. The winner was Democrat Bill Richardson, who went on to become New Mexico's governor. In 1988, Udall ran in the open, Albuquerque-based 1st District, and won the Democratic nomination, but he lost the general election to Republican Steven Schiff, 51%-47%. In 1990, he was elected state attorney general, and in that role, focused on environmental and consumer protection issues.

In 1997, when Richardson resigned the 3rd District seat, Republican Bill Redmond, an independent Christian minister from Los Alamos, won it in an upset, assisted by a Green Party candidate nominee who won 17%. In 1998, Udall decided he had a shot at the seat, given the district’s heavy ratio of Democrats to Republicans. He worked to consolidate the Democratic and leftist vote. Drawing on lawyers, the arts community and friends of the Udall family, he raised daunting sums. The Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters criticized Redmond and ran waves of ads against him. As for the third-party threat, Udall said, “I intend to make peace with the Greens.” He won with 53% of the vote. Redmond got the same 43% he had won 18 months before, while Green Party nominee Carole Miller saw her 17% evaporate to 4%. Udall won re-election without serious challenges four times.

Udall had a seat on the House Resources Committee, on which his father served and which his uncle chaired. He helped to enact a bill to explore establishment of a national historical park at Los Alamos. With Republican Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland, he formed a bipartisan coalition to seek alternatives to high-priced and finite petroleum resources. Locally, he called for a ban on oil drilling in the Valle Vidal area of the Carson National Forest, which was passed in 2006. He opposed Republican attempts to permit salvage logging in national forests as well. On the 2007 energy bill, he sponsored an amendment requiring 15% of electricity to be generated from renewable sources other than nuclear power by 2020. The Democratic leadership supported this amendment, and the bill passed 220-190. But the Senate refused to accept Udall’s proposal, and it was dropped from the legislation that was signed into law.

With a largely liberal voting record, he voted against the Bush administration’s USA PATRIOT Act, which gave law enforcement greatly expanded powers to investigate terrorists. He proposed revisions in the act to limit police authority to obtain search warrants and to restore civil liberty protections for libraries and bookstores. Udall opposed the 2002 Iraq war resolution and called “misguided” a bill to restrict illegal immigrants from obtaining driver’s licenses.

After Democrats took control of the House in 2007, Udall secured a seat on the powerful Appropriations Committee. He tried unsuccessfully to amend the energy and water appropriations bill to restore $192 million of the $300 million being cut for national laboratories, including Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Despite losing that battle, Udall voted for the final bill, unlike New Mexico Republicans Heather Wilson and Steve Pearce, who voted against it. He was criticized at home for his vote, and defended his position as a signal to the labs that their missions needed to change from a focus on nuclear weapons to alternative energy research and other areas. But when the House voted in June 2008 to shut down the plutonium-manufacturing program at Los Alamos, Udall opposed it.

When Republican Sen. Pete Domenici announced he would not run for re-election in 2008, Wilson and Pearce immediately jumped into the race; several Democrats, including moderate Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez, considered it as well. This was the first open Senate seat in New Mexico since 1972, and only the second open seat since 1948. Udall at first said he wasn’t interested. But Gov. Richardson and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Charles Schumer of New York urged him to run. On Nov. 10, a little less than a year out from the election, Udall announced his candidacy, which quickly cleared the Democratic field.

Meanwhile, Wilson and Pearce battled for the Republican nomination. Pearce attacked Wilson for supporting the Democrats’ expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which he called “socialized medicine,” and for voting to raise taxes. Wilson hit Pearce for votes against additional guards on the U.S. border with Mexico. Domenici endorsed Wilson a few days before the June primary. Still, Pearce still won, 51%-49%.

The primary drained Pearce’s war chest, and Udall was able to significantly outspend him, $7.8 million to $4.6 million. Pearce went on the attack, painting Udall as captive to the liberal wing of the Democratic Party and its “hippie” traditions. A former oil industry executive, Pearce also hammered Udall for his opposition to new oil exploration in environmentally sensitive areas. Udall responded that he was for a “do-it-all” approach to energy. It was apparent long before November that this wasn’t much of a contest. Udall won 61%-39%. Pearce carried only Little Texas in the southeast and the San Juan Basin in the far northwest corner. Pearce did manage to win back his old House seat in 2010.

In the Senate, Udall joined his cousin Mark Udall, who had just won election to a Colorado Senate seat. Tom Udall has been a bit more faithful Democrat than his cousin, aligning himself largely with the liberal wing of his caucus. In one of his first moves, he succeeded in designating 17,000 acres in San Miguel County as wilderness in a bill that passed in January 2009. A Udall amendment providing tax credits for employers hiring military veterans discharged after 2001 was included in the 2009 economic stimulus bill. On the Environment and Public Works Committee, Udall has pushed for a national renewable energy standard. It failed to pass in 2009, but undaunted, Udall said in March 2011 he would introduce a bill imposing a 25% renewable energy requirement and that it might gain traction as part of President Barack Obama’s call for a clean energy standard.

As a member of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Udall worked on improving rural areas’ access to broadband Internet service. He also continued his earlier focus on consumer-related issues. He asked the Federal Trade Commission in 2011 to investigate misleading safety claims in selling football helmets and introduced a 2010 bill requiring new cars to have “black box” data recorders to help investigate crashes. He looked after New Mexico’s tribes as a member of the Indian Affairs Committee, working to add a provision to the health care overhaul for improved Indian medical services.

But Udall has drawn the most attention for his efforts to alter how the Senate conducts its business. Like many senators who come over from the House, he found himself dismayed at the frequent use of GOP filibusters to delay or block pending legislation, often resulting in gridlock. At the outset of the 112th Congress (2011-12), he offered a plan that would bar the use of the filibuster on the initial motion to begin debate, but permitting lawmakers to filibuster a final bill if they remain on the floor during debate. His plan also would eliminate secret “holds” used to delay nominations of executive branch officials. The Senate fell 16 votes short of the number needed to adopt Udall’s proposed changes. After Majority Leader Harry Reid said he had reached agreement with Republicans informally on several ways to prevent gridlock in the chamber, Udall vowed to push for further improvements, particularly regarding the reduced number of votes needed to cut off a filibuster. “We can do things here in a much better way,” he said.

Udall added the Foreign Relations Committee to his workload in 2011, expressing a desire to help ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty defining the international usage of oceans. The treaty has drawn fierce opposition from conservatives concerned about its infringement on U.S. sovereignty.