Sen. John Warner (R) Elected 1978, 5th term up 2008
Born:	Feb. 18, 1927, Washington, D.C.
Home:	Alexandria
Education:	Washington & Lee U., B.S., 1949, U. of VA, LL.B. 1953
Religion:	Episcopalian
Marital Status:	married (Jeanne Vander Myde)
Military Career:	Navy, 1944-46 (WWII), Marine Corps, 1950-52 (Korea).
Professional Career:	Law Clerk, U.S. Court of Appeals, Chief Judge Barrett Prettyman, 1953-54; Practicing atty., 1954-56, 1960-69; Asst. U.S. Atty., 1956-60; U.S. Navy, Undersecy., 1969-72, U.S. Navy, Secy., 1972-74; Dir., Amer. Rev. Bicentennial Comm., 1974-76.
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John Warner, first elected in 1978, is the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He grew up in Washington, D.C., with Virginia roots; his grandparents lived in Amherst County, Virginia. His father was a field surgeon in World War I; a great-uncle served in the Confederate Army and lost his arm in the Battle of the Wilderness. Warner volunteered for both the Army and Navy in 1944, at 17; the Navy snapped him up first. (There are only six World War II veterans left in the Senate: Ted Stevens, Daniel Inouye, Daniel Akaka, Frank Lautenberg, Ernest Hollings, John Warner; 43 of the 100 senators were not born until after World War II.) He went to college at Washington & Lee and then interrupted his years at the University of Virginia Law School when he volunteered to serve in the Marine Corps in Korea. He worked as an assistant U.S. attorney and then practiced law in Washington and had a house in the horse country in Middleburg, Virginia. During the Nixon administration, he was Secretary of the Navy and negotiated with the Soviets the Incidents at Sea Executive Agreement, still in effect and a model often imitated. From 1974 to 1976 he headed the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission. He ran for the Senate in 1978 with few political assets other than his then-wife, Elizabeth Taylor. Finishing second at the huge Republican state convention, he graciously supported winner Richard Obenshain; then, when Obenshain died in a plane crash, Republican leaders reluctantly named Warner to fill his place. Warner won the general over Democrat Andrew Miller by a 4,721-vote margin and was easily re-elected in 1984, 1990 and 2002. He had serious competition only in 1996 from now-Governor Mark Warner (no relation).

Warner can be grandiloquent and showy, yet he works hard on important issues and has shown steadfastness in his beliefs. His voting record is moderately conservative, sometimes liberal on cultural issues. He has voted for government funding of abortions in some cases, but favors parental consent laws and the partial-birth abortion ban. He voted for the Brady gun control bill and in May 1999 to control gun sales by non-licensed dealers at gun shows. Representing a state that still has a large number of public employees (though the proportion is dropping), he favors higher federal pay and supported repeal of the Hatch Act. In the 2001 tax cut, he sponsored successfully a $250 credit for educational supplies and a $500 deduction of professional development for teachers.

On some issues he has joined Democrats and opposed most Republicans, on gun control in May 1999 and on amendments to HMO regulation in July 1999. He led the bipartisan Virginia-Maryland delegation and in October 2000 raised the federal funding of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge across the Potomac to $1.5 billion.

Warner was the ranking Republican on the Armed Services committee from 1987-93, and was looking forward to becoming chairman when the more senior Senator Strom Thurmond bumped him. When both were re-elected in 1996, Warner expressed the hope he might be chairman some time within six years. In December 1997, on the day before his 95th birthday, Thurmond announced he would step down in January 1999 to give the younger generation a chance; he kept his word and Warner became chairman at 71. For years on the committee he had worked closely with Democratic chairman Sam Nunn; but he opposed Nunn and led the fight in 1991 for the Gulf War resolution, which passed by only 52-47. Warner made harsh criticisms of Clinton administration defense policy. He had supported previous rounds of base closings, but after Bill Clinton's politically-motivated tampering with the 1995 round of closings, he voted against another round in May 1999, saying, ''Politics have destroyed the credibility of the process for closing bases." Warner voted against the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in October 1999, arguing that it was impossible to monitor Russian compliance. He opposed NATO expansion and was wary of U.S. troop commitments in the Balkans. But when Clinton sent in troops in May 1999 he said, "Once the president made the decision to join NATO in the Balkans, we have to support the troops." In May 2000, he and Robert Byrd sponsored an amendment to end U.S. deployment in Kosovo by July 2001; it was beaten by only 53-47. In the first major bill of the 106th Congress, he hammered through the biggest military pay and pension increases in nearly 20 years. In October 2000, he secured coverage under the military Triad medical care plan of all military retirees, a change with a price tag of $60 billion over 10 years.

Warner has shown some prescience about problems others did not discern. In early 2001, before September 11, he created a new Emerging Threats Subcommittee to focus on terrorism, chemical and biological warfare and cyberwarfare; he was concerned about what might happen if the military's high-tech computers fail or are somehow jammed by low-tech countermeasures. Noting the unwillingness of the military and its civilian leaders to accept casualties, he called for a new set of unmanned weapons, and wants one-third of military aircraft to be unmanned by 2010 and one-third of ground vehicles to be unmanned by 2015. He strongly backs missile defense. In a secret markup session in May 2000, he got approval of five new nuclear submarines of the Virginia class--a major increase in the submarine fleet.

The evening of September 11 he appeared at a press conference with Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs at the Pentagon. "We call upon the entire world to step up and help--because terrorism is a common enemy to all." Because of the danger of terrorism at home, he called in October 2001 for reexamination of the 1878 Posse Comitatus law that bars use of federal troops domestically. Defense authorization bills usually pass with bipartisan support, but in May 2002 he voted against the bill because Democrats led by Chairman Carl Levin shifted $812 million away from missile defense; his opposition plus a Bush veto threat got the Democrats to back down. Shipbuilding is a major Warner interest, and much of it is done at Virginia's Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock. In 2001 Warner favored Northrop Grumman's acquisition of the company; he was opposed by Trent Lott, who worried that Northrop Grumman might transfer business from Mississippi's Ingalls shipyard, which it already owned, to Newport News. Warner put into the 2002 defense bill $229 million to keep on schedule the $10 billion CVNX aircraft carrier to be built at Newport News; this is a transformational ship, with a new nuclear plant and electromagnetic catapults to hurl planes into flight. He continued to press Rumsfeld to keep work going forward to meet the delivery date of 2013 (when Warner will be 84). Warner sponsored the Iraq war resolution in October 2002. "We cannot let the United Nations think in any way that they can veto the authority of this president or the ability of this nation to defend itself."

For a time in the 1990s, Warner seemed to be in a war with many Virginia Republicans. In 1993, he refused to endorse lieutenant governor candidate Michael Farris, the leader of the national home schooling movement, and in 1994 he announced he could not support Senate nominee Oliver North, whose conviction on Iran-Contra charges was overturned on the grounds of inadmissibility of some critical evidence. Instead Warner backed independent (and twice Republican gubernatorial candidate) Marshall Coleman, and many blamed Warner for North's narrow loss to Charles Robb. Farris and North backers hoped to deny Warner renomination in 1996 at the gigantic Virginia Republican state convention. But Warner invoked a Virginia law that entitled him to insist on a primary. There he defeated James Miller, budget director under President Ronald Reagan and North's opponent at the 1994 convention, by 66%-34%. In the general election, against former Democratic state chairman and now-Governor Mark Warner, John Warner called himself a ''common sense conservative'' and, citing seniority, said, ''Virginia's got an investment in me.'' John Warner won, but only narrowly, 52%-47%. He carried by narrow 51%-49% margins the usually Republican Richmond areas and non-metropolitan Virginia: evidence that some Farris and North enthusiasts cut him. He carried the Norfolk area by only 52%-47%: He was not yet Armed Services chairman. He ran best, 55%-45%, in Northern Virginia, where his highly visible opposition to Farris and North was an asset.

In 2002, by contrast, he had no serious opposition. Republicans had mostly forgotten Farris and North. Democrats were content not to run a candidate. Mark Warner, now governor, called John Warner "a great guy and a great senator" and said, "I think Senator Warner represents Virginia well and fights very, very hard on a number of critical issues." Think shipbuilding and highways: Warner fights for Newport News on Armed Services and, after getting a waiver from the Republican Conference to serve on Environment and Public Works, will be in on the markup of the next highway bill--important in traffic-clogged Virginia. For his part, Senator Warner joined Governor Warner in campaigning for passage of the November 2002 transportation tax referenda in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads. "I fully recognize that taxation is a highly volatile thing--especially when you're seeking reelection--but, you know, duty calls. I put politics aside when the issue requires a team effort." The referenda were defeated, but John Warner was reelected with 83% of the vote. Warner played a critical role in December 2002 in easing Trent Lott out of the Majority Leader position. After Don Nickles called for a new leader, Warner went on CNN and said, "Let's make it clear. This nation is at war. We're approaching very serious decisions with regard to future action we may take. … And we have the integrity of the institution which we love and serve, the U.S. Senate. To leave this very fine leader--and he's been a good leader through the years; I've worked with him carefully--just out there by himself and leaving it to the journalists and the people to pick us off individually and singularly, I think, is not in the interest of the nation." Translation from senatorial into English: Lott must go.

Virginia has elected 51 men to the United States Senate, and Warner has served longer than all but two of them. He will pass the record of Carter Glass in April 2005 and, if he is elected to another term, of Harry Byrd Sr. in September 2011.

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DC Office
225 RSOB 20510, 202-224-2023; Fax: 202-224-6295; Web site: warner.senate.gov

State Offices
Abingdon, 276-628-8158; Norfolk,757-441-3079; Richmond,804-771-2579; Roanoke,540-857-2676.

Committees

• Armed Services (Chmn.).
• Environment & Public Works: Fisheries, Wildlife & Water; Superfund & Waste Management; Transportation & Infrastructure.
• Health, Education, Labor & Pensions: Aging; Children & Families.
• Intelligence (Select).

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2002	15	20	38	12	12	100	51	95	79	82	--
2001	20	--	8	25	--	--	77	86	96	--	100

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2001 LIB	--	2001 CONS		2002 LIB	--	2002 CONS
Economic	35%	--	62%		40%	--	59%
Social	33%	--	59%		0%	--	62%
Foreign	36%	--	54%		33%	--	65%
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 Y 2. Expand Patients' Rights Y 3. Campaign Finance Reform Y 4. Permit ANWR Development Y 5. Confirm Ashcroft as AG Y 6. Bar Gays in the Boy Scouts Y		7. $ for Hate Crime Prosecution N  8. Overseas Military Abortions N  9. Bar Coop. with Intl. Court Y 10. Trade Promotion Authority Y 11. Authorize Force in Iraq Y 12. Homeland Sec. Dept. Union N

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2002 general	John Warner (R)	1,229,893	83%	$1,709,202
	Nancy Spannaus (I)	145,102	10%	$61,984
	Jacob Hornberger (I)	106,055	7%	$66,480
2002 primary	John Warner (R)	unopposed
1996 general	John Warner (R)	1,235,744	52%	$5,819,157
	Mark Warner (D)	1,115,982	47%	$11,600,424
Prior winning percentages: 1990 (81%); 1984 (70%); 1978 (50%)