Sen. Joe Lieberman (D) Elected 1988, 3d term up 2006
Born:	Feb. 24, 1942, Stamford
Home:	New Haven
Education:	Yale U., B.A. 1964, LL.B. 1967
Religion:	Jewish
Marital Status:	married (Hadassah)
Elected  Office:	CT Senate, 1970-80, Maj. Ldr., 1974-80; CT Atty. Gen., 1982-88.
Professional Career:	Practicing atty., 1967-70, 1980-82
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Joe Lieberman is now a national figure of some eminence after his candidacy for vice president in 2000. He has been admired for some time for his independence of mind, civility of spirit and fidelity to causes in which he believes; if this reputation was not enhanced by the 2000 campaign, which after all was an inevitably partisan enterprise, it was not badly damaged. Lieberman has always been an intensely political person, balancing a solid allegiance to the Democratic Party with a commitment to intellectual rigor and honesty--a balancing act that is never easy and occasionally impossible. Lieberman grew up in Stamford, the son of a liquor store owner, and was interested in politics early on; he remembers coming home from school at age nine eager to watch the televised Kefauver hearings. He went to Yale College and Yale Law School, became chairman of the Yale Daily News and worked summers for Senator Abraham Ribicoff and the Democratic National Committee. His political ambitions were no secret-- other students called him "the Senator." In college he wrote an admiring yet revealing biography of that quintessential political boss John Bailey, Connecticut Democratic chairman from 1946-1975. Writing a book that was intellectually honest enough to pass academic scrutiny but tactful enough not to displease a man who could make or break his political career was a challenge, and Lieberman met it. At the same time, he was not afraid to challenge the political establishment. He helped found a reform and antiwar Caucus of Connecticut Democrats; in 1970 he ran for state Senate in New Haven against state Senate Majority Leader Edward Marcus, and won with help from, among others, a Yale Law student volunteer named Bill Clinton. In 1980 he ran for an open House seat and lost 52%-46%; in 1982 he was elected attorney general, where he took action against fake charities, crooked car dealers and gouging merchants.

In 1988 Lieberman challenged Senator Lowell Weicker, another maverick, but of a different sort. Weicker was well to the left of most Republicans on economic and cultural issues; Lieberman was more conservative than most Democrats on cultural issues and foreign policy. Lieberman is an Orthodox Jew--he didn't attend the convention that nominated him because it was held on Saturday, and sent in a videotape instead--and a believer that "we in government should look to religion as a partner, as I think the Founders of our country did." He favored the death penalty and a moment of silence in schools, and opposed Weicker's proposed 30-cent gas tax increase. He ran witty ads, one showing a bear sleeping through work--a nice take-off on the growling but erratic Weicker. Lieberman won 50%-49%; the contest cut across party lines, with Lieberman running well in industrial towns and Weicker in Hartford, college towns and tony towns in Litchfield County.

Lieberman has made a distinctive mark in foreign policy. He was one of the leaders in the fight for the Gulf War resolution in January 1991, and without his earnest but vehement support it might not have passed. Presciently, he called for "final victory" over Saddam Hussein. He is a strong supporter of Israel but favored F-15 sales to Saudi Arabia in 1992. He favored U.S. ground troops in Bosnia and action against Bosnian Serb war criminals. He backed NATO expansion in Eastern Europe. In 1998 he led a fight for sanctions to stop Russia from exporting missile technology to Iran. In 1999 hearings, he said there was "a shocking lack of thoroughness, competence and urgency" in government investigations of the leaking of nuclear secrets to China. He has strongly opposed Fidel Castro's regime in Cuba--a glaring difference between him and his colleague Christopher Dodd--and in May 2001 sponsored with Jesse Helms a bill to give $100 million to Cuban opposition groups. After September 11 he strongly supported the war against terrorism in Afghanistan and in December 2001 was one of 10 members who signed a letter urging George W. Bush to target Iraq next. And his vision is broader: in January 2002 he urged the administration to move its putative allies in the Arab world toward political freedom to prevent a "theological iron curtain" behind which terrorism can build. In May 2002, when Tom DeLay introduced a resolution supporting Israel in the House, Lieberman introduced one in the Senate, but with fewer condemnations of Palestinian leaders.

On economic issues, Lieberman has backed capital gains tax cuts for small business ("you can't be pro-jobs and anti-business") and urged Bill Clinton to sign the 1996 welfare reform bill--both stands opposed by many Democrats. He opposed the Bush tax cut in May 2002 and the post-September 11 stimulus package in January 2002. He preferred instead cuts in depreciation and a 10-day sales tax holiday. In May 2002 he called for delay of scheduled future tax cuts. As chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, he presided over hearings on Enron in early 2002. Some critics on the left said he was part of the problem, for having urged delay in Clinton SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt's proposals to bar accounting firms from doing both audits and consulting work for companies and for having opposed the expensing of stock options. He said that he only sought time to think about Levitt's proposal and that expensing stock options fairly was impossible because it was not clear what they were worth. In April 2002 Lieberman presented his own recommendations: Aggressive enforcement, more funding for the SEC, new authority for the SEC to remove corporate board members, increased independence for stock analysts, limiting the non-audit work of accounting firms.

From the platform of the Governmental Affairs Committee, Lieberman also made points on environmental issues. He attacked the Bush administration for refusing to cap wholesale electricity prices during California's electricity crisis. He subpoenaed documents from the Bush Interior and Agriculture departments and EPA on scalebacks of Clinton environmental regulations. With John McCain, increasingly a legislative partner, he sponsored a bill to reduce carbon dioxide and other emissions with an economy-wide cap and to sanction emissions trading. He called Bush's leadership on emissions "feeble" and said his energy policy was "mired in crude oil." In November 2001 he threatened to filibuster against oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Lieberman has spoken out eloquently on moral issues. In 1995 he joined with Book of Virtues author William Bennett and criticized gangsta rap records, and shamed Time Warner into selling their Interscope label; in 1998 they said the purchaser, Seagram, failed to keep its promises to clean up the words, and gave it a Silver Sewer award. In highly publicized Commerce Committee hearings in September 2000 he denounced the marketing of violent movies, music and video games with children. But during that fall campaign, after he attended a Hollywood fundraiser and spoke of being a "noodge" to the industry, Bennett criticized him for abandoning their fight against obscenity and violence. One thing that made Lieberman an attractive running mate for Al Gore was the fact that he was one of the few Democrats who was not a lockstep defender of Bill Clinton. He was dismayed by Clinton's August 17, 1998, speech in which he grudgingly admitted lying about the Lewinsky affair for seven months. When the Senate resumed in September, Lieberman took the floor and said, "Such behavior is … wrong and unacceptable and should be followed by some measure of public rebuke and accountability." But he was persuaded by Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle not to call for censure, and he stopped well short of backing impeachment or resignation. In 2001 he proposed that entertainment companies marketing adult content to children should be disciplined by the FTC and fined up to $11,000 a day. Lieberman has long believed, as he said in 2002, that "faith-based groups can help government solve pressing social problems." But he opposed the faith-based charities bill the House passed in July 2001, and with Rick Santorum developed a different approach, based on tax incentives for corporate giving, for matching by banks of poor people's "development accounts," plus charitable deductions of up to $400 a year for taxpayers who take the standard deduction. He has supported gun-control measures, but worked to get a gun produced by Connecticut-based Colt removed from the 1994 assault weapon ban and voted against making lawsuits against gunmakers non-dischargeable in bankruptcy.

Lieberman played a key--and frustrating--role on the issue of homeland security. He became convinced well before George W. Bush that there should be a cabinet department combining the government agencies involved in homeland security, and in October 2001 he sponsored a bill to create one. Then, in June 2002, Bush came out with his proposal for such a department. Lieberman said, with good reason, that Bush's plan resembled his own, and drafted a bill in July 2002. But in late August Bush said that the personnel provisions of Lieberman's bill would not give him sufficient flexibility to manage the department. The main issue was whether the president could get rid of unions in divisions of the department. Lieberman argued that his version allowed removal on a case-by-case basis if there was a showing that union rights were a threat to national security. Bush administration spokesmen said that such civil service procedures were too cumbersome and that Lieberman's version actually reduced the president's ability to move employees out of unions. For most of September there was a standoff in the Senate; in October, the bill was pulled for a while for consideration of the Iraq war resolution and other issues. Lieberman evidently had a 51-vote majority for his version, but Republicans were able to keep it from coming to the floor. Democrats, in refusing to give in to Bush's demands, were being faithful to their longtime supporters, the government employee unions. But the issue played a major role in the defeats of Senators Max Cleland in Georgia and Jean Carnahan in Missouri. After the election, Democrats meekly conceded most of the issue.

Al Gore's selection of Lieberman as his vice presidential nominee in 2000 was history-making: He was the first Jew on a major party ticket in American history. Gore knew Lieberman from the Senate, where they were friends--Gore did not have many close personal relationships with colleagues. But two things probably pushed Gore toward his choice: Lieberman's reputation for probity and denunciation of Clinton, which gave the ticket some insulation from the Clinton scandals, and Lieberman's moderate record on many issues and undoubted ability. Another asset proved to be Lieberman's fervent avowals of religious faith and that it has a rightful place in politics; what might have been resented from a Christian conservative seemed attractive coming from an Orthodox Jew. Some Democrats criticized him for running for vice president and for re-election as senator at the same time; if he won both, Connecticut's Republican Governor John Rowland could have appointed a Republican replacement.

Overall, Lieberman was clearly an asset to the ticket. His poll ratings were high, and if there was general agreement that Dick Cheney excelled at the October 6 vice presidential debate, Lieberman also performed well; some observers wondered whether the order of the tickets should be reversed. Lieberman's Judaism seems not to have hurt the ticket anywhere, and it probably helped in crucial Florida; he made memorable campaign appearances in heavily Jewish Broward and Palm Beach Counties, which voted nearly 2-1 for Gore (the exact margin, of course, turned out to be in some dispute). But there was some tension between positions Lieberman had taken before August 2000 and what he said during the campaign. He had questioned racial quotas and preferences, and refused to oppose Proposition 209 in California in 1996, which banned racial quotas and preferences by paraphrasing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Lieberman told the Black Caucus at the Democratic convention, to great applause, that he had voted against abolishing racial set asides in transportation contracts. Lieberman had supported vouchers for students in the failing District of Columbia schools; he told teachers' union leaders that he was for demonstration vouchers, but overall wanted to put money into public schools. He had said that Social Security was headed on a disastrous course and needed an injection of funds from private markets; in the campaign he said that the transition costs for George W. Bush's plan were too high. In the Florida controversy, Lieberman took what to some was a surprisingly partisan role--though of course this was a quintessentially partisan issue. On Sunday interview shows he said that he and Gore would never challenge legitimately cast military absentee ballots. But on the preceding Friday night, lawyers working for the Gore-Lieberman ticket did precisely that.

On Election Day, the Gore-Lieberman ticket carried Connecticut 56%-38% and Lieberman was re-elected to the Senate by a 63%-34% margin over Waterbury Mayor Phil Giordano. Governor Rowland tried to keep Giordano from running, on the theory that a contest would only bring out Democratic votes; the result of the race was never in doubt, and Lieberman did not bother to show up at one debate. The margin was a slight downtick from Lieberman's 67%-31% victory in 1994, but his position in Connecticut seems rock-solid.

He returned to the Senate as a major national figure--and one self-evidently eager to run for president in 2004. He made numerous trips to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and campaigned for many candidates in 2002. He made a series of 11 intellectually hefty policy speeches in 2002 and helpfully bound them into a pamphlet. He even got into a post-mortem argument with Gore over campaign strategy. In August 2002 he said, "Al said some things in the campaign that were not the logical continuation of things--his voting record in the Senate and his career in public service. The people versus the powerful unfortunately left that track and gave a different message, which may have been caused by the pressure that the Nader campaign was giving us. But I think it was not the New Democratic approach." Gore responded in a New York Times opinion article that people versus the powerful was "the right choice." Lieberman responded that it was "not expressive of the fiscally responsible, pro-growth, grow-the-middle-class campaign we were running." But one thing could stop his candidacy: He pledged in 2000 that he would not run in 2004 if Gore did, and he kept that pledge. John McCain and other friends gave him advice how to get around it, and Gore himself said that Lieberman shouldn't feel bound by it. But Lieberman said he did. Then in December 2002 Gore surprised just about everyone by saying he wouldn't run. Lieberman was on the phone right away, calling former Gore aides and asking for their support.

The question raised by the Lieberman candidacy was whether a candidate out of line with most politicians of his party on some key issues could be nominated. On some issues Lieberman had changed or at least adjusted his position in the 2000 campaign, and in early 2003 he seemed to stick with his 2000 adjustments. He did not come out for individual investment accounts in Social Security, which he had once considered favorably, but which now almost all Democratic members of Congress opposed. He did not revert to his 1996 comments that looked favorably on California's Proposition 209 that prohibited racial quotas and preferences in state government. Yet there was at least one issue on which he took a position most fervently which was out of line with many, though by no means all, Democrats: The war on terrorism. Lieberman supported George W. Bush on going into Afghanistan and going into Iraq, and he supported him not just perfunctorily or after the fact, but was in fact urging these actions, fervently and cogently, before Bush acted. He has been one of the most prominent voices calling for the remaking of the Middle East and the encouragement of democracy and human rights in the region. These are not, to put it mildly, things valued in the left portion of the Democratic party. But it seems plain that on these issues, unlike some others, Lieberman will not change his views to help his electoral chances, and the 2004 caucuses and primaries will reveal what price he pays.

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DC Office
706 HSOB 20510, 202-224-4041; Fax: 202-224-9750; Web site: www.lieberman.senate.gov

State Offices
Hartford, 860-549-8463.

Committees

• Armed Services: Airland (RMM); Emerging Threats & Capabilities; Seapower.
• Environment & Public Works: Clean Air, Climate Change & Nuclear Safety; Transportation & Infrastructure.
• Governmental Affairs (RMM).
• Small Business & Entrepreneurship.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2002	85	40	88	82	77	75	20	60	20	12	--
2001	95	--	92	100	--	--	7	43	28	--	20

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2001 LIB	--	2001 CONS		2002 LIB	--	2002 CONS
Economic	71%	--	27%		87%	--	11%
Social	70%	--	20%		82%	--	0%
Foreign	51%	--	43%		55%	--	44%
For National Journal's complete 2002 Vote Ratings, as well as previous ratings dating back to 1995, please click here.

Key Votes Of The 107th Congress (More Info)
1. Approve Bush Tax Cuts N 2. Expand Patients' Rights Y 3. Campaign Finance Reform Y 4. Permit ANWR Development N 5. Confirm Ashcroft as AG N 6. Bar Gays in the Boy Scouts N		7. $ for Hate Crime Prosecution Y  8. Overseas Military Abortions Y  9. Bar Coop. with Intl. Court Y 10. Trade Promotion Authority Y 11. Authorize Force in Iraq Y 12. Homeland Sec. Dept. Union Y

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2000 general	Joe Lieberman (D)	828,902	63%	$3,786,665
	Phil Giordano (R)	448,077	34%	$1,080,020
	Other	34,282	3%
2000 primary	Joe Lieberman (D)	unopposed
1994 general	Joe Lieberman (D)	723,842	67%	$4,017,520
	Jerry Labriola (R)	334,833	31%	$166,064
	Other	20,989	2%
Prior winning percentages: 1988 (50%)