Elected 1980, seat up 2004 Born: May 27, 1944, Willimantic Home: East Haddam Education: Providence Col., B.A. 1966, U. of Louisville, J.D. 1972 Religion: Catholic Marital Status: married (Jackie Clegg)

Career:

• Political: U.S. House of Reps., 1974-80.
• Professional: Peace Corps, Dominican Republic, 1966-68; Practicing atty., 1972-74.
• Military: Army Reserves, 1969-75.

DC Office: 448 RSOB 20510, 202-224-2823; Fax: 202-224-1083; Web site: www.senate.gov/~dodd

State Offices: Wethersfield, 860-258-6940.

Committees:

• Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs: Financial Institutions; Housing & Transportation; Securities & Investment (Chmn.).
• Foreign Relations: African Affairs; European Affairs; International Operations & Terrorism; Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps, Narcotics Affairs (Chmn.).
• Health, Education, Labor & Pensions: Aging; Children & Families (Chmn.); Employment, Safety & Training.
• Rules & Administration (Chmn.).

Christopher Dodd was almost born into politics, one of four senators who are sons of senators (Evan Bayh, Lincoln Chaffee and Bob Bennett are the others). His father Thomas Dodd, a prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, was elected to the House in 1952, when Chris was eight; he lost a Senate race to Prescott Bush, George Bush's father, in 1956, then won in 1958. Chris Dodd served in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic from 1966-68. In 1967 the older Dodd was censured by the Senate for misuse of funds; he ran as an independent in 1970 and Chris Dodd managed his campaign, in which he finished behind Republican Lowell Weicker and Democrat Joseph Duffey, for whom Yale Law School student Bill Clinton was working as a volunteer. Almost immediately after law school, Christopher Dodd ran for the House in the open-seat eastern Connecticut 2d District and, in the Watergate year of 1974, won comfortably. He was re-elected easily and in 1980 outmaneuvered fellow Watergate Democrat Toby Moffett to get the Democratic nomination to succeed Senator Abraham Ribicoff, and won that race by a wide margin.

Dodd, who speaks fluent Spanish, has often played a role on Latin American issues. On the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee in the 1980s he took the lead in opposing U.S. military aid to El Salvador's government and aid to the Nicaraguan contras. He opposed the process of certifying anti-drug efforts of foreign countries each year, arguing that this causes needless friction with Latin countries, especially Mexico, without helping the anti-drug effort; it was ended in 1997. He has long backed freer travel to and trade with Castro's Cuba. He strongly supported sending 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez back to Cuba, and said that Elian's case would spotlight what he considers the wrongheadedness of isolating Cuba. But he opposed the language in the House Republicans' June 2000 bill on lifting the embargo on food and medicine, which he said would restrict the president's ability to open up travel to Cuba. Dodd threatened a filibuster on the issue, and prevented it from being passed in June 2000 with the aid package that included the Clinton administration's $1 billion-plus Plan Colombia. In October, with some grumbling, he voted for the bill lifting the embargo, which passed by a wide margin. In contrast to his wariness of U.S. military aid in Central America in the 1980s, he supported Plan Colombia, to provide equipment and military training to Colombians fighting the FARC guerrillas. "Whether we like it or not, we are engaged … in Colombia," he said. "This is not some distant conflict without any ramifications here at home." He sponsored an amendment to allow the Pentagon and Colombia to decide which helicopters to use; they were expected to favor Connecticut-made Black Hawks, while Congress preferred the less expensive Texas-made Hueys. The amendment failed by a 51-47 vote, and Dodd voted for the full measure.

Dodd worked on the 1990 ABC child care bill, which established Child Care and Development Block Grants, funding for which was sharply increased in 2000. He was the lead sponsor of the Family and Medical Leave Act vetoed by George Bush and signed by Bill Clinton in early 1993--and cited often by Clinton as one of his greatest achievements. With Ohio Republican Mike DeWine, Dodd has worked to promote testing of psychiatric drugs prescribed for young children. They also co-sponsored the Firefighter Investment and Response Enhancement Act of 2000 and got $100 million funding for it; this was the first federal aid program for firefighters, a vivid contrast with the $11 billion of federal aid to police and state and local law enforcement. With Joseph Lieberman Dodd sponsored the bill passed to curtail the use of restraint and seclusion in mental health facilities.

Connecticut, with its big insurance companies, has long been a creditor state, and one leery of trial lawyers. Dodd was the chief Democratic sponsor of the securities litigation bill sought by high-tech companies and fought by trial lawyers. "People shouldn't make a business out of ambulance chasing when a stock simply fluctuates on the market," he said. When Clinton vetoed it, Dodd immediately started lobbying Senate and House Democrats, and both houses in December 1995 voted to override. In 1996 and 1998 he worked with Phil Gramm and Alfonse D'Amato to successfully pass a law barring class-action securities litigation suits from state courts, requiring them to be heard in federal court where the rules are stricter. He was a lead sponsor of the product liability bill vetoed by Clinton in May 1996. He sponsored the Y2K litigation law of 1999, which created a 90-day waiting period before Y2K lawsuits could be brought; the aim was to encourage mitigation of those problems and alternative dispute resolution and to discourage predatory class action suits.

Dodd has a pleasant, friendly manner and seems unfazed by opposition and approaches debates with an affable air, deflating opponents' indignation and suggesting that they are all in this game together. That has served him well when he took the national stage in 1996, though not in the role he first sought or with the encore he might have wished. In November 1994 he launched a quick and nearly successful campaign for Senate Democratic leader after his original choice, Jim Sasser, had been defeated for re-election. After a month-long campaign, Dodd lost to Tom Daschle by just 24-23. Dodd was promptly asked by Bill Clinton to be Democratic National Committee chairman. Dodd performed ably in public debates and set-tos with Republican Chairman Haley Barbour, but was embarrassed in October 1996 when he followed White House orders to stonewall on charges that DNC top-level fundraiser John Huang raised millions in illegal foreign contributions. Dodd plausibly denied that he knew much about Huang, who was placed at the committee personally by Clinton; he was less plausible when he said he never thought the White House coffees, some of which he attended, were fundraisers. Dodd dropped the chairmanship in January 1997, and mostly avoided investigations of the DNC thereafter. In 1998 he seemed genuinely angry with Clinton for carrying on the Lewinsky affair and then lying about it for seven months: "On issues, I've stood up and fought for things and all of a sudden, the idiot throws [the Lewinsky scandal] in the midst of all this." In 2000 he lobbied hard to get his junior colleague Joseph Lieberman nominated for vice president, assuring Jesse Jackson, NEA head Bob Chase, and AFL-CIO President John Sweeney that Lieberman was a good Democrat. Never did he show a sign of jealousy or envy; on the contrary, when Lieberman reached him with the news, while Dodd was at a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike, Dodd quipped, "Here I am at this rest stop eating a hamburger and you've got all this Secret Service protection."

Dodd was easily re-elected in 1998. His Republican opponent was Gary Franks, elected congressman in 1990 and defeated in 1996 in the often marginal 5th District, and one of the few black Republicans to serve in Congress. Franks' attacks on Dodd's closeness to Clinton and his attendance record struck no sparks, especially since Franks was outspent by $3 million. In October the New Haven Register reported that a lien had been placed on Franks' home in Waterbury; he had several unconvincing explanations, and Dodd actually scolded a reporter for raising the issue. "Why should I vote for you?" a student at Guilford High School asked. ''Because I'm a hell of a guy,'' Dodd replied, with a big smile. He won 65%-32%, carrying all but six of the state's cities and towns. In February 2001 Dodd said he would run for re-election in 2004.

Group Ratings
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2000	95	71	85	86	82	100	12	53	13	3	15
1999	95	--	100	89	72	--	4	53	0	--	--

National Journal Ratings
	1999 LIB	--	1999 CONS		2000 LIB	--	2000 CONS
Economic	71%	--	28%		89%	--	10%
Social	81%	--	12%		79%	--	0%
Foreign	78%	--	13%		72%	--	15%

Key Votes of the 106th Congress
1. Educ. Savings Accts. N 2. Prescrip. Drug Benefit Y 3. Delay Ergonomic Standards N 4. Phase Out Estate Tax N 5. Review Movie Violence Y 6. Gun Show Bckgrnd. Checks Y		7. Ban Part.-Birth Abortion N  8. Broaden Hate Crimes List Y  9. NATO War in Serbia Y 10. Table Cuba Travel Ban N 11. Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Y 12. Perm. Trade with China Y

Election Results
1998 general	Christopher J. Dodd (D)	628,306	(65%)
	Gary A. Franks (R)	312,177	(32%)
	Other	23,974	(2%)
1998 primary	Christopher J. Dodd (D)	nominated by convention
1992 general	Christopher J. Dodd (D-ACP)	882,569	(59%)
	Brook Johnson (R)	572,036	(38%)
	Other	46,104	(3%)

Campaign Finance
1998	Receipts	Receipts from PACs	Expenditures
Christopher J. Dodd (D)	$4,102,172	$1,192,570	$4,442,567
Gary A. Franks (R)	$1,501,937	$71,602	$1,478,307