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.
DC Office	225 RSOB20510, 202-224-2023; Fax: 202-224-6295; Web site: warner.senate.gov
State Offices	Abingdon, 276-628-8158; Midlothian, 804-739-0247; Norfolk, 757-441-3079; Roanoke, 540-857-2676.
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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 five World War II veterans left in the Senate: Ted Stevens, Daniel Inouye, Daniel Akaka, Frank Lautenberg, John Warner; 45 of the 100 senators were born after World War II ended). Warner 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) and won 52%-47%.

Warner can be grandiloquent and showy, yet he works hard on important issues and has shown steadfastness in his beliefs. Warner has been chairman of the Armed Services Committee since January 1999, when the more senior Strom Thurmond stepped down, except for the 18 months when Democrats had a Senate majority. 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." But in 2003 he foiled House Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter's attempt to postpone the 2005 base-closing round, and when asked to protect Virginia's Fort Monroe said, "There's nothing the law allows me to do. And I happen to be one who abides by the law. The concept of the BRAC process is to get Congress out--O-U-T--out of the business." In May 2005, Fort Monroe made the Pentagon's proposed closure list. 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.

Warner has shown some prescience about problems others did not discern. In 1999, he created a new Emerging Threats Subcommittee to focus on terrorism, chemical and biological warfare and cyberwarfare. He strongly backs missile defense and in June 2004 sponsored an amendment to require the Pentagon to develop criteria for real-life operational missile tests by February 2005 and to begin testing no later than October 2005. 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. In June 2004, over the opposition of Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens, he got reinstatement of $140 million for a future carrier and $110 million for a carrier refueling project. The evening of September 11 he appeared at a press conference with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs at the Pentagon. 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. 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. 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." He continued to support the Iraq effort as others questioned it. After Richard Lugar and Chuck Hagel criticized Bush policy in September 2004, Warner said, "I looked at those remarks and I looked at what our president has done and what he is trying to do today, and I'm solidly in the Bush corner."

But Warner has not been uncritical of the military. In May 2004 he held widely publicized hearings on the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and put Rumsfeld under oath, despite criticism from Hunter ("the Senate has been mesmerized by cameras") and committee member Jim Inhofe. "This is as serious a problem of breakdown in discipline as I've ever observed," Warner said. Warner backed the administration plan to buy KC-767 refueling tankers from Boeing and, with Levin, in October 2003 proposed to lease 20 and buy 80, to solve a budgetary problem. But after Boeing was caught in scandal he and Levin withdrew their support in March 2004. In July 2004 Warner declared his flat-out opposition to a military draft and in December 2004, when many conservatives were attacking Rumsfeld, he said, "We should not at this point in time entertain any idea of changing those responsibilities in the Pentagon." Warner differed with the 9/11 Commission's conclusion that intelligence oversight was "dysfunctional" and fought unsuccessfully to limit the authority of the new national intelligence director over the military.

Warner's voting record is moderately conservative and 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; in February 2004 he co-sponsored renewal of the assault weapons ban and opposed the measure protecting gun manufacturers from lawsuits hold them responsible for crimes committed with their products. He put a hate crimes provision in the 2004 defense authorization. Representing a state that still has a large number of public employees, he favors higher federal pay and supported repeal of the Hatch Act. 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 and in October 2003 obtained $500 million to clean up military bases damaged by Hurricane Isabel. Warner owns a house in Cape Cod, near Edward Kennedy's, and in October 2004 sent a note to the Army Corps of Engineers expressing "concern" about the wind farms proposed on Nantucket Sound.

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. In the 1994 Senate race 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.'' Warner was reelected, but only narrowly, 52%-47%.

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." 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. The referenda were defeated, but John Warner was reelected with 83% of the vote. In February 2004 he supported Governor Warner's proposed tax increase. "Politics be damned! Let's consider what's best for the men and women of this great state and their families and children."

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

Committees

• Armed Services (Chmn.).
• Environment & Public Works: Fisheries, Wildlife & Water; Superfund & Waste Management; Transportation & Infrastructure.
• Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs: Federal Financial Management, Govt. Information & International Security; Investigations (Permanent); Oversight of Govt. Management, the Federal Workforce & the District of Columbia.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	25	11	0	0	100	68	100	72	93	83	--
2003	10	--	11	11	--	74	100	80	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	0%	--	82%		36%	--	63%
Social	44%	--	55%		52%	--	47%
Foreign	22%	--	68%		0%	--	67%
For National Journal's complete 2004 Vote Ratings, as well as previous ratings dating back to 1995, please click here.

Key Votes Of The 108th Congress (More Info)
1. Ban Drilling in ANWR N 2. Approve Bush Tax Cuts Y 3. Medicare/Rx Bill Y 4. Bar Overtime Pay Regs. N 5. Energy Bill Y 6. Support Roe v. Wade Y		7. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion Y  8. Assault Weapons Ban Y  9. Ban Same-Sex Marriage Y 10. Ban Bunker-Buster Bomb N 11. Fund Iraq War Y 12. Restrict Missile Defense 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%)