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Last Updated June 22, 2005
Charles Schumer is New York's senior senator, first elected to the House in 1980 and to the Senate in 1998. Schumer grew up in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and graduated first in his class at James Madison High School, alma mater also of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman. He graduated from Harvard College and Law School and, with the latter diploma fresh in his hand in June 1974, immediately began running for an open Assembly seat. He won, at 23. In 1980 he was elected to the House from an open Brooklyn seat, just before he turned 30. Through energy, imagination, hard work, good humor and a certain amount of chutzpah, he became a skilled legislator, and one noted--and sometimes resented--for his knack for getting publicity: Bob Dole was one of the first to say that the most dangerous place in Washington was in between Schumer and a television camera. From the unlikely venue of the Banking Committee, a panel that most talented members lobby to get off of, Schumer spotted the perverse incentives set up by the combination of deposit insurance and letting S&Ls make risky investments. On Judiciary and, eventually, as chairman of its Crime Subcommittee, he ranged far afield, contributing key provisions to immigration acts in 1986 and 1990, leading attacks on farm subsidies, and a nearly successful assault on sugar programs. Schumer sponsored the 1994 crime bill and got the House to pass the Brady bill, with its waiting period for handgun purchases, over strong opposition from the National Rifle Association. The idea of running for statewide office was surely never far from his mind. In April 1997 Governor George Pataki's strong job rating, and especially his overwhelming strength Upstate, convinced Schumer to use his $5 million treasury to run for Alfonse D'Amato's Senate seat instead of the governorship. It was by no means obvious that Schumer would win. D'Amato was known for his assiduous constituent service and for his ability to win the tabloid wars that dominate campaigning in metropolitan New York. D'Amato was chairman of the Banking Committee and excelled at raising money; his early support did much to make Pataki governor. Schumer started off largely unknown outside his district and faced serious primary opposition from 1984 vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro and Mark Green, New York City Public Advocate and D'Amato's opponent in 1986. By summer, Schumer was leading in polls and was much better financed, and in September he won the primary with 51% of the vote, to 26% for Ferraro and 19% for Green. Schumer immediately launched an attack on D'Amato, saying he had told ''too many lies for too long''; it echoed D'Amato's attacks on earlier opponents as ''too liberal for too long.'' Schumer claimed he was tougher on crime, citing his support for longer sentences, limiting death row appeals, expanding capital punishment and broadening wiretap authority; he emphasized his support of abortion rights and gun control. D'Amato concentrated heavily on Schumer's missed votes while running for Senate, but the implication that Schumer was lazy was implausible. Still, by mid-October, Schumer's poll leads were mostly less than the statistical margin of error. But in a closed meeting before a Jewish group D'Amato called Schumer a ''putzhead''; when that became public, he denied it, then backtracked unconvincingly after his own supporter, former Democratic Mayor Edward Koch, confirmed it. D'Amato lost confidence and momentum, and by early November was sagging in polls. Schumer, who announced in October that he would vote against impeachment though he believed Bill Clinton lied under oath, was the beneficiary of two visits from Clinton and no less than four from Hillary Rodham Clinton (the rousing receptions she got may have prompted her to run for the Senate in New York two years later). Though outspent, Schumer won 55%-44%, winning 74%-25% in a big turnout in New York City and losing the suburbs by only 51%-49%. In the Senate, Schumer has had a solidly liberal voting record. He holds regular Sunday press conferences, to get in the Monday papers. He has made a practice of visiting all 62 counties each year, and regularly spends Mondays on Upstate swings that get him on Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Albany television. He is one of three Americans in history who have cast two votes on the impeachment of the same president (the other two are Mike Crapo of Idaho and Jim Bunning of Kentucky, also congressmen elected to the Senate in 1998); Schumer voted against impeaching Clinton in the House in December 1998 and against conviction in the Senate in February 1999. An ally of the securities industry on both the House and Senate Banking Committees, he has called for making electronic communications networks subject to the same regulations as stock exchanges and for making the New York Stock Exchange a profit-making corporation. He played a key role in the scuttling of the bankruptcy bill in 2002. He persuaded the Senate to pass an amendment that made fines and penalties for blocking access to or attacking abortion clinics not dischargeable in bankruptcy in May 2002; some abortion opponents had taken to declaring bankruptcy to avoid paying fines. But abortion opponents in the House, led by Chris Smith and Joe Pitts, refused to vote for the bill as long as it had Schumer's amendment. Leaders in both houses got Schumer and Henry Hyde, with whom he had long worked on the House Judiciary Committee, to negotiate a compromise amendment. But that too was unacceptable to the Smith-Pitts group, and when the House leadership introduced a rule to consider the bill in November 2002 it was defeated 243-172 and the bankruptcy bill died. Schumer tried again in March 2005, but this time the abortion amendment was voted down, 53-46, in the Senate, and the bill was quickly passed, sent to the House and enacted. Schumer has also taken on the pharmaceutical companies by attempting to deny them extension of their patents beyond their original time when they challenge a generic drugmaker for patent infringement; he has called for requiring states to post prescription drug prices online. He has called for making it easier to switch cellphone companies, for disclosure of fees by money transfer companies, for a do-not-email registry to discourage spam, for more disclosure of interest rates by credit card companies. He disappointed some Democrats by agreeing to support the class action bill in return for some changes in 2004, but he persevered in opposing the energy bill despite claims by Upstate Congressman James Walsh that it included funding for a megamall in Syracuse. In January 2004 he and conservative commentator Paul Craig Roberts wrote an article arguing the "new developments," chiefly global competition, "call into question some of the key assumptions supporting the doctrine of free trade." Schumer serves on Judiciary, where he has argued that senators should reject Bush appointees on "purely ideological grounds." Starting with the nomination of Miguel Estrada, he has led the opposition to at least 10 Bush judicial nominees whom he and various lobbying groups have said were out of the mainstream, and together with almost all other Democrats has been using the filibuster to prevent the confirmation of federal judges with majority support. He has taken strong exception to Senate Republicans who have advocated changing the rules to allow nominations to be considered by majority vote. On September 11 Schumer was in Washington; his daughter was in school a few blocks from the World Trade Center. Amid the terrible news, Schumer and others in the New York delegation conferred and agreed to seek $20 billion in aid for New York. In the Oval Office on September 13 Schumer and Clinton met with George W. Bush. Bush asked how much New York needed. Schumer paused and said $20 billion. Bush's reaction: "You got it." The usually voluble Schumer's reaction? "My mouth dropped open." Of course there was more to it than that. The New Yorkers understood that some of the money would not be forthcoming immediately, since no one had decided how to reconstruct the World Trade Center site and its transportation facilities. Schumer worked to prevent OMB and House Republicans from putting off as much of the spending as they wanted and dealt with the backlash against Pataki's calling for $54 billion. The Bush administration turned to Schumer to get support for what became the USA Patriot Act, and Schumer and Clinton backed the proposal to let the FBI share information on terrorism with state and local police. Channeling the flow of money into New York state and city has been part of Schumer's job. In 2004 he sought $7.1 billion in transit money over six years in the transportation bill. In 2005 he called for an additional $61 million for housing in New York City when inflation had increased costs. In 2004 he secured $21.8 million for job retraining from the Manufacturing Extension Partnership for an Albany area economic development commission. He announced $4.5 billion in disaster relief for the transit center linking PATH and New York City subway lines at the World Trade Center site--to the irritation of Governor George Pataki, who thought he was entitled to make the announcement. He secured grants for all manner of projects--$150,000 to refurbish the Natural History Museum of the Adirondacks in Tupper Lake, $68,000 to buy an ambulance for volunteer fire dept in Hermon in St Lawrence County, $720,000 for a center for the disabled in Schenectady, $125,000 for the Albany Institute of History and Art's online exhibits. He got funding for tritium cleanup at the Brookhaven National Laboratory and a federal takeover of the cleanup of a nuclear rods factory in Hicksville. Schumer does not have close ties to Governor George Pataki: he campaigned extensively for Democrat Carl McCall in 2002 and for much of 2004 was rumored to be interested in running for governor himself. He has gotten along much better with nominally Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Schumer's wife Iris Weinshall is Bloomberg's Transportation Commissioner and in late October 2004 Bloomberg endorsed Schumer for reelection. When Hillary Rodham Clinton was elected in November 2000, many thought there would be friction between the aggressive Schumer and the more famous Clinton. There mostly hasn't been, not in public anyway. Clinton was probably irritated after Schumer criticized Bill Clinton's January 2001 pardon of Marc Rich. And they must have had some disagreements as they struggled to help New York after September 11: the more earthy Schumer seemed to get along better with Bush, the more disciplined Clinton seemed to get along better with some Republican senators. Relations between two senators of the same party from the same state are very often fractious, especially when both are seeking plenty of home state publicity; Schumer may be the senior senator, but Clinton is the better-known and the one regarded by many as her party's likeliest presidential nominee in 2008. As there is some lifestyle difference. While Clinton holds fundraisers in her $2.8 million house in Washington, Schumer shares a Capitol Hill townhouse with Senator Dick Durbin and Congressmen Bill Delahunt and George Miller. Schumer has been a prodigious fundraiser since his early days in the House; he husbanded funds back then lest redistricting pit him against another Jewish Democratic incumbent in Brooklyn. Over the 2004 cycle Schumer raised $11.9 million. Speculation abounded that he was interested in running for governor in 2006; in the meantime his Senate race proved easy. Constant travels in Upstate New York made him as well known there as in New York City. The Republican nominee, Assemblyman Howard Mills, was little known and poorly financed; he was ignored by Schumer and hectored by Conservative nominee Marilyn O'Grady. No Democratic incumbent senator has been defeated in New York since direct election of senators began (although seven incumbent Republicans have lost). Schumer won 71%-24%, exceeding the 67%-31% record set by Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1988; he won 66% of the vote in the suburbs, 63% Upstate and 86% in New York City. That only increased the rumors that Schumer would run for governor; some thought there was a game of chicken between him and highly publicized Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Schumer protested that he wasn't running for governor. "If I was running for governor, I would have run a whole different race. The primary vote is 80% Downstate. I would have been Downstate all the time. I was Upstate." But the issue was settled in mid-November, when it was announced that Schumer would become chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and that he would become a member of the Finance Committee. That committed Schumer to a continuing Senate career and left Spitzer free to run for governor. The work ahead, however, looked difficult. The lineup of Senate seats up in 2006 seemed to leave Republicans with more target seats than Democrats. On Finance he promised to work for pressuring China to revalue its currency and to pass provisions preventing American corporations from relocating overseas. Talk of possible major tax simplification left Schumer with the same primary goal as New York's representatives had during the debate over tax simplification in 1985 and 1986, preserving the deductibility on federal tax returns of (New York's very high) state and local taxes. In the meantime, his highest visibility battle was to prevent the confirmation of Bush judicial appointees opposed by most Democrats.
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