Richard Burr, North Carolina’s senior senator, was first elected to the Senate in 2004 after serving 10 years in the House. A distant relative of Vice President Aaron Burr, he grew up a minister’s son in Winston-Salem, was a star football player at Reynolds High School and Wake Forest University, then worked in sales for national wholesaler Carswell Distributing. In 1992, Burr ran against Rep. Steve Neal, a Democrat first elected in 1974. Although outspent 3-to-1, he lost by a relatively narrow 53%-46%. Neal retired in 1994 and Burr ran again, this time winning a solid 57% of the vote. He did not have a serious challenger in the next four House elections. Read More
Richard Burr, North Carolina’s senior senator, was first elected to the Senate in 2004 after serving 10 years in the House. A distant relative of Vice President Aaron Burr, he grew up a minister’s son in Winston-Salem, was a star football player at Reynolds High School and Wake Forest University, then worked in sales for national wholesaler Carswell Distributing. In 1992, Burr ran against Rep. Steve Neal, a Democrat first elected in 1974. Although outspent 3-to-1, he lost by a relatively narrow 53%-46%. Neal retired in 1994 and Burr ran again, this time winning a solid 57% of the vote. He did not have a serious challenger in the next four House elections.
In the House, Burr had a mostly conservative voting record. On the Energy and Commerce Committee, his early cause became streamlining the Food and Drug Administration’s drug and medical device approval process, which he argued kept lifesaving products from the market. For over two years, he worked with the agency, doctors, patients, consumer groups and the pharmaceutical industry to come up with a consensus. With broad bipartisan support, his FDA Modernization Act became law in 1997. He also helped to set up the National Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at the National Institutes of Health. After the September 11 attacks, he sponsored laws to improve defenses against bioterrorism. He sought a crackdown on illegal textile imports but backed President George W. Bush’s call for trade promotion authority after securing promises that the local textile industry would have a seat at the table. He called it a difficult vote but said it could help make U.S. textiles more competitive internationally.
In 2004, a major issue for him was a plan to end the tobacco quota system in place since 1938 by buying out quota holders. The entire North Carolina delegation favored this; tobacco quotas had been cut back in recent years and seemed likely to be again. At issue was whether the buyout should be coupled with FDA regulation of tobacco. The Senate passed a corporate tax bill with both the buyout and FDA regulation. In the House, Burr favored the buyout without FDA regulation, arguing that the toxicity of cigarettes should be regulated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and that package labeling should fall under the Federal Trade Commission. Burr was appointed to the conference committee, where he held out for the buyout without FDA regulation; the Senate yielded and the bill was enacted.
Burr had promised to serve only five terms in the House and by the early 2000s wanted to run for the Senate. In 2002, when GOP Sen. Jesse Helms retired, he deferred to fellow Republican Elizabeth Dole, who had the backing of the Bush White House. Two years later, Democratic Sen. John Edwards was running for president, and Burr had the shot he was waiting for. He had $2 million in his campaign treasury and, this time, had the support of White House political strategist Karl Rove.
He had serious opposition from Erskine Bowles, the White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton who had had lost the 2002 Senate race 54%-45% to Dole. Bowles had deep roots in North Carolina. His father Hargrove “Skipper” Bowles was the Democratic nominee for governor in 1972, and his wife, Crandall Close, headed Springs Industries, a large textile firm started by her family. As Clinton’s top aide, Bowles negotiated the 1997 legislation that helped produce a balanced federal budget for the first time in years. And he had earned the respect of Republican leaders even as they seethed with mistrust of Clinton.
Bowles started running ads in May, and led in polls until September. Burr held back on ads till then and, since both spent about $13 million, had a money advantage in the last two months. Bowles ran on a 10-point economic program and touted his ability to work with both parties while depicting Burr as the king of the special interests, especially the pharmaceutical and tobacco companies. Republicans made much of Burr’s role in blocking FDA regulation of tobacco. For his part, Burr linked Bowles to Clinton’s policies on tax increases, welfare for immigrants and trade with China.
On Election Day, Bush carried North Carolina 56%-44% in his re-election bid, and Burr beat Bowles 52%-47%. Bowles won big majorities in rural black-majority counties and in the counties with Durham and Chapel Hill. Burr carried almost every rural county in the Piedmont and the mountains. Later, when he co-chaired President Barack Obama’s fiscal commission, Bowles said of Burr: “I think by the grace of God we both ended up in the exact right jobs for North Carolina....I can tell you from first hand experience nobody works harder or is smarter than this guy in Washington. I think we are fortunate to have a man like this in the U.S. Senate.”
In the Senate, Burr has leaned conservative on cultural issues and toward the center on foreign policy. In 2005, he won enactment of a bill to create the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority to develop vaccines and other countermeasures to biological terrorism or a pandemic, and he co-sponsored reauthorization of the bill in 2009 with the late Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. Opponents criticized the bill for its secret operations and for protecting companies that make ineffective or harmful medicines. Burr responded that the agency would become the “venture capitalist” for private-sector initiatives and would have complete access to their data. Biotech firms applauded the bipartisan deal. In 2005, he amended the defense appropriation with a measure providing liability protection for vaccine manufacturers. And he was an original co-sponsor of the food safety bill that passed in 2010. But Burr continued to oppose FDA regulation of tobacco. In 2009, he tried unsuccessfully to stop a Senate regulation bill from passing.
As the ranking minority member on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Burr in 2008 sponsored a bill to give transition payments to soldiers moving from active duty to veteran status and also won Senate passage of a bill setting the cost-of-living adjustments for veterans with service-connected disabilities to the same rate as Social Security adjustments. Burr co-sponsored with Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona a revision of the GI Bill of Rights that would allow veterans to transfer half their benefits to spouses or children after six years and all of them after 12 years. The Senate ultimately passed a bill that went even further, allowing veterans with three years of service to get tuition at the most expensive of their state’s public colleges. In 2010, Burr sponsored provisions in a bill raising the level of benefits for veterans with severe brain trauma injuries and veterans with prostheses. Burr has also pushed legislation that would force the Veterans Affairs Department to provide health care to veterans exposed to alleged toxic water at the Marine Corps base at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. The legislation has failed to get traction.
Burr also focused on quality of life issues for the military on the Armed Services Committee. In 2010, he sponsored a successful bill providing relief from the alternative minimum tax on benefits for children or parents of military personnel who die in the line of duty. In December 2010, Burr surprised his conservative supporters when he voted to end the “don’t ask, don’t tell” ban on openly gay service personnel. “A majority of Americans have grown up at a time that they don’t think exclusion is the right thing for the United States to do,” Burr told The Hill newspaper. “It is not accepted practice anywhere else in our society, and it only makes sense.”
One area where Burr continued to take a strong conservative line was immigration. In 2006, he voted against the Senate immigration overhaul bill because he said it would lead to “blanket amnesty” for illegal immigrants. During negotiations on the compromise bill the following year, Burr supported the “touchback” amendment that would have forced illegal immigrants to return to their home countries before applying for visas. When the amendment was voted down, he voted against allowing the compromise bill to advance.
Burr seems to have a soft spot for animals. He sponsored a bill to bar the National Institutes of Health from recalling chimpanzees from retirement at their haven in Keithville, La., for medical research. And in 2010, he co-sponsored a bill with Democrat Jeff Merkley of Oregon that criminalized so-called animal crush videos, which depict small animals being tortured to death. President Obama signed this bill into law.
During the financial crisis in 2008, Burr voted with many Democrats for the $700 billion government rescue of the financial industry, but later had reservations and opposed release of the second half of the money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program. He also attracted some unfavorable attention during the crisis when he said he had advised his wife to withdraw as much cash as possible out of ATMs.
Burr endorsed Mitt Romney for president in December 2011. In the past, Burr has showed an interest in moving up in the Senate leadership. In 2007, he lost a bid for Republican Conference chairman to Lamar Alexander of Tennessee on a 31-16 vote. But in January 2009, he was named chief deputy whip. In October 2011, Burr said he intended to run for Senate Republican whip, the number two slot in the GOP leadership chain. The position is scheduled to open up after the 2012 elections following the retirement of Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. However, in March 2012, Burr changed his mind and said he’d rather focus on legislation.
Burr joined forces with Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. in February 2012 to revamp Medicare. Starting in 2016, the plan would give seniors a choice to keep the traditional government fee-for-service program or choose an insurance policy devised by bidding private companies.
Burr cast a controversial vote in early 2012. When a bill aimed at banning insider trading by members of Congress was brought up on the Senate floor, there was little doubt it would pass. The legislation only gained momentum after Congress was shamed into acting from a 60 Minutes exposé on the practice. On a 96-3 vote, Burr was one of the three dissenters and received widespread criticism. The left-leaning blog Huffington Post reported that Burr stood to gain from his natural gas tax credit bill because he had personal investments in the natural gas industry. Burr denied any attempt to profit from past legislation. Defending his actions on a local radio show, Burr said that insider trading bans were already on the books and that the issue took time away from discussing the economy.
When he came up for re-election in 2010, there was some speculation that Burr would encounter serious opposition, considering Obama’s victory in North Carolina in 2008 and Dole’s defeat for re-election to the Senate. There also seemed to be a jinx on the seat. No incumbent had won a second term since Sam Ervin retired in 1974. Moreover, polls showed Burr had a low profile in the state. But the strongest possible Democratic challenger, state Attorney General Roy Cooper, widely respected for his work in the case of three Duke University lacrosse players falsely accused of rape, declined to run. Burr’s opponent became Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, holder of statewide office for 14 years. She beat former state Sen. Cal Cunningham, an Iraq war veteran, in a runoff primary, 60%-40%.
Marshall came out of the primary contest with little money and spent $2.8 million altogether. Burr raised and spent $11 million. Marshall hit him for supporting the Wall Street bailout and dubbed him “Bank Run” Burr for his ATM advice to his wife. She attacked him for his support from business political action committees and for boasting of his conservative credentials. But none of this got much traction. Marshall also got no help from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which was busy defending a dozen Democratic-held seats that year. Burr won 55%-43%, losing several of the state’s largest counties and all its black-majority counties, but carrying virtually everything else.
