Dick Durbin Biography
Richard Joseph Durbin (born November 21, 1944) is an American politician serving as the senior United States Senator from Illinois, a seat he was first elected to in 1996. He has been the Senate Democratic Whip since 2005, the second-highest position in the Democratic leadership in the U.S. Senate.
Durbin was born in East St. Louis, Illinois. He graduated from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and Georgetown University Law Center. Working in state legal counsel throughout the 1970s, he made an unsuccessful run for Lieutenant Governor of Illinois in 1978. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1982, representing the Springfield-based 20th congressional district.
In 1996, he won election to the U.S. Senate by an unexpected 15-point margin. He has served as Senate Democratic Whip since 2005, and for a period of eight years (2007–2015) served as the Senate Majority Whip. He is currently dean of the Illinois congressional delegation, as he has served in Congress since 1983 as a U.S. Representative from Illinois 20th Congressional District, and from 1997 as a U.S. Senator from Illinois.
Durbin now serves as the Senate Minority Whip following the 2014 midterm elections, where the Republicans gained a majority in the U.S. Senate and when he won reelection, defeating Republican Jim Oberweis, by a margin of 53.55% to 42.69%.
Dick Durbin Age
Richard Joseph Durbin is an American politician serving as the senior United States Senator from Illinois, a seat he was first elected to in 1996. He was born November 21, 1944, in East St. Louis, IL, he is 74 years old as of 2018
Dick Durbin Early life, education, and career
Durbin was born in East St. Louis, Illinois, to an Irish-American father, William Durbin, and a Lithuanian-born mother, Anna (née Kutkin; Lithuanian: Ona Kutkaitė). He graduated from Assumption High School in East St. Louis in 1962. During his high school years, he worked at a meatpacking plant.
He earned a B.S. from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in 1966. He was an intern in the office of Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois during his senior year in college. Durbin earned his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 1969 and was admitted to the Illinois bar later that year.
After graduating from law school, Durbin started a law practice in Springfield. He was legal counsel to Lieutenant Governor Paul Simon from 1969 to 1972, and then legal counsel to the Illinois State Senate Judiciary Committee from 1972 to 1982. Durbin was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for a seat in the Illinois State Senate in 1976.
He ran for Lieutenant Governor in 1978 as the running mate of State Superintendent of Schools Michael Bakalis. They were defeated by Republican incumbents Jim Thompson and Dave O’Neal. Durbin then worked as an adjunct professor at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine for five years while maintaining his law practice.
Dick Durbin Leadership
In November 1998, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle appointed Durbin as his Assistant Democratic Whip. Following the 2004 election, Durbin became the Democratic Whip in the 109th Congress. He became the first senator from Illinois to serve as a Senate Whip since Everett Dirksen did so in the late 1950s, and the fifth to serve in Senate Leadership.
Durbin served as Assistant Minority Leader from 2005 until 2007, when the Democrats became the Majority Party in the Senate. He then assumed the role of Assistant Majority Leader or Majority Whip.
In addition to his caucus duties, Durbin is Chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government.
In 2000, Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore reportedly considered asking Durbin to be his running mate and candidate for Vice President of the United States. Gore ultimately selected Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman.
When Majority Leader Harry Reid faced a difficult re-election fight in 2010, some pundits predicted a possibly heated fight to succeed him between his assistant Durbin and Senator Chuck Schumer, who is well known for his fund-raising prowess. Reid’s re-election victory, however, rendered such speculation moot.
Dick Durbin U.S. House of Representatives
In 1982, Durbin won the Democratic nomination for the now-eliminated 20th congressional district, which included Macon and most of Springfield. He scored a 1,400 vote victory, defeating 22-year incumbent Paul Findley, a U.S. Navy veteran, whose district lines had been substantially redrawn to remove rural farms and add economically depressed Macon, replacing 35-percent of the voters and include more Democrats as part of the decennial redistricting.
Durbin’s campaign emphasized unemployment and financial difficulties facing farmers, and told voters that electing him would send “a message to Washington and to President Reagan that our economic policies are not working.”
Durbin benefited from donations by pro-Israel groups from around the United States, in particular, concentrated support from AIPAC supporters, that were opposed to Findley’s advocacy on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization in the year prior to the election. Durbin was re-elected six times, rarely facing serious opposition, and winning more than 55% of the vote in each election except 1994.
Dick Durbin U.S. Senate
In 1996, Durbin defeated Pat Quinn to become the Democratic Party’s nominee to replace the retiring Democratic incumbent, Senator Paul Simon, a long-time friend. He faced Republican State Representative Al Salvi in the November general election.
Although the election had been expected to be competitive, Durbin benefited from Bill Clinton’s 18-point win in Illinois that year and was able to capture a 15-point margin over his opponent. He has since been re-elected in 2002, 2008 and 2014, each time by at least 10%.
Dick Durbin Image
Dick Durbin Political positions
Durbin is one of the most liberal members of Congress. Mother Jones has called him a “top Senate liberal.” His voting record is very similar to the Democratic caucus position, consistent with his leadership position as Whip, which has the duty of persuading senators to follow the party line in their votes.
As a trial lawyer, Durbin has excellent debating abilities, so much so that majority leader Harry Reid called him “the best debater” in the U.S. Senate.
Dick Durbin Abortion
As a congressman, Durbin voted consistently to uphold existing restrictions on abortion or impose new limitations, including supporting a Constitutional amendment that would have nullified Roe v. Wade. He reversed his position in 1989 and has since voted to maintain access to abortion, including support for Medicaid funding of it, and opposition to any limitation he considers a practical or potential encroachment upon Roe.
Durbin has maintained that this reversal came about due to personal reflection and his growing awareness of potentially harmful implications of his previous policy with respect to women facing dangerous pregnancies.
While visiting a home for abused children in Quincy, Illinois, the director, a friend, asked him to speak with two girls who were about to turn 18 and be turned out of state care. Talking with those girls, victims of gang rape and incest, made him reconsider his position on the subject.
He says, “I still oppose abortion and would try my best to convince any woman in my family to carry the baby to term. But I believe that ultimately the decision must be made by the woman, her doctor, her family, and her conscience.”
Dick Durbin Criminal justice reform
In July 2017, along with Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris, Durbin was one of four senators to introduce the Dignity for Incarcerated Women Act, legislation implementing a ban on the shackling of pregnant women and mandating the Bureau of Prisons to form superior visitation policies for parents along with providing parenting classes and offering health products such as tampons and pads for free.
The bill also restricted prison employees from entering restrooms of the opposite sex with the exception of pressing circumstances.
In December 2018, Durbin voted for the First Step Act, legislation aimed at reducing recidivism rates among federal prisoners through expanding job training and other programs in addition to forming an expansion of early-release programs and modifications on sentencing laws such as mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, “to more equitably punish drug offenders.”
Dick Durbin Darfur
On March 2, 2005, then-Senator Jon Corzine presented the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act (S. 495) to the Senate. Durbin was one of 40 senators who co-sponsored that bill. The Darfur Accountability Act is noted as the premier legislative attempt to instill peace in Darfur.
The bill also asks that all people involved in or deemed in some way responsible for the genocide in Darfur to be denied visas and entrance to the U.S.
In 2006, Durbin co-sponsored the Durbin-Leahy Amendment to the Supplemental Appropriations bill for emergency funding to instill peace in Darfur. In 2006, he also co-sponsored the Lieberman Resolution and the Clinton Amendment.
On June 7, 2007, Durbin introduced the Sudan Disclosure Enforcement Act, which as “(a)aimed at enhancing the U.S. Government’s ability to impose penalties on violators of U.S. sanctions against Sudan.” The bill called for the U.S. Security Council to vote on sanctions against the Sudanese Government for the genocide in Darfur.
Durbin has voted in favor of all Darfur-related legislation. In addition to the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act, he also supported the Civilian Protection No-Fly Zone Act, the Hybrid Force Resolution, and the Sudan Divestment Authorization Act.
Myanmar
In October 2017, Durbin condemned the genocide of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar and called for a stronger response to the crisis.
Guantanamo Bay
Durbin has openly compared the U.S. treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base to the atrocities committed by “Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others — that had no concern for human beings.”
Demands that he apologize were initially rebuffed, however, Durbin later apologized to the military for the 2005 remarks, which he admitted were “a very poor choice of words.”
Gun law
Durbin received an “F” grade from the National Rifle Association for his consistent support for gun control.
Durbin sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions in May 2017 asking for support in expanding the Chicago Police Department’s violence prevention programs by expanding access to the Strategic Decision Support Centers and the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network.
He also asked the Justice Department to support the Stop Illegal Trafficking in Firearms Act, which would stop illegal state-to-state gun trafficking.
In response to mass shootings, such as the Orlando nightclub shooting and Las Vegas shooting, Durbin has repeatedly called for expanded gun control laws, stating that Congress would be “complicit” in the shooting deaths of people if they did not act.
Following the Las Vegas shooting in October 2017, Durbin was one of twenty-four senators to sign a letter to National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins espousing the view that it was critical the NIH “dedicate a portion of its resources to the public health consequences of gun violence” at a time when 93 Americans die per day from gun-related fatalities and noted that the Dickey Amendment did not prohibit objective, scientific inquiries into shooting death prevention.
Dick Durbin HIV/AIDS
In March 2007, Durbin introduced the African Health Capacity Investment Act of 2007 to the Senate. The bill was designed so that over a three-year period, the U.S. would supply over $600 million to help create safer medical facilities and working conditions, and the recruitment and training of doctors from all over North America.
In December 2007, Durbin and two other senators co-sponsored Senator John Kerry’s Nondiscrimination in Travel and Immigration Act. Also, in March 2007, he joined thirty-two other senators to co-sponsor the Early Treatment for HIV Act of 2007.
2001 Invasion of Afghanistan
Durbin voted to approve the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists. This act granted the executive broad military powers and was used to justify the US’ invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, along with many subsequent military interventions.
Dick Durbin Iraq War
On September 9, 2002, Durbin was the first of four Democratic senators (the others being Bob Graham, Feinstein, and Levin) on the Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), responding to the Bush administration’s request for a joint resolution authorizing a preemptive war on Iraq without having prepared a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), to ask Central Intelligence Director George Tenet to prepare a NIE on the status of Iraq’s Weapon of mass destruction programs.
Durbin was also one of few senators who read the resulting prepared October 1, 2002, NIE, Iraq’s Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction.
On September 29, 2002, Durbin held a news conference in Chicago to announce that “absent dramatic changes” in the resolution, he would vote against the resolution authorizing war on Iraq. On October 2, 2002, at the first high-profile Chicago anti-Iraq War rally in Federal Plaza, he repeated his promise to oppose the resolution in a letter read during the rally.
On October 10, 2002, the U.S. Senate failed to pass Durbin’s amendment to the resolution to strike “the continuing threat posed by Iraq” and insert “an imminent threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction”, by a 30-70 vote, with most Democratic senators voting for the amendment, but with 21 joining all 49 Republican senators voting against it. On October 11, 2002, Durbin was one of 23 senators to vote against the joint resolution authorizing the Iraq War.
On April 25, 2007, Durbin said that as an intelligence committee member he knew in 2002 from the classified information that the American people were being misled by the Bush Administration into a war on Iraq, but he could not reveal this because, as an intelligence committee member, he was sworn to secrecy. This revelation prompted an online attack ad against Durbin by the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
Fair Sentencing Act
Durbin authored the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, legislation that corrected some of the imbalance in cocaine sentencing.
Dick Durbin Immigration
Durbin is the chief proponent for the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, a piece of proposed federal legislation.
This bill would provide certain students who entered or were brought to the nation illegally with the opportunity to earn conditional permanent residency if they arrived in the US as children, graduated from a US high school, have been in the country continuously for at least five years prior to the bill’s enactment, submit biometric data, pass a criminal background check, and complete two years toward a four-year degree from an accredited university or complete at least two years in the military within a five-year period.
Durbin’s leadership on this issue was recognized in 2013 when the Immigrant Legal Resource Center presented him with the inaugural Nancy Pelosi Award for Immigration & Civil Rights Policy.
On January 28, 2013, Durbin was a member of a bi-partisan group of eight Senators, the Gang of Eight, which announced principles for comprehensive immigration reform (CIR).
In April 2018, Durbin was one of five senators to send a letter to acting director of ICE Thomas Homan on standards used by the agency when determining how to detain a pregnant woman, requesting that pregnant women not be held in custody unless under extraordinary standards after reports “that ICE has failed to provide critical medical care to pregnant women in immigration detention — resulting in miscarriages and other negative health outcomes”.
In July 2018, Durbin said Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen should resign over the Trump administration family separation policy.
He argued it “is and was a cruel policy inconsistent with the bedrock values of the nation,” adding someone “in this administration has to accept responsibility.” Tyler Houlton, a DHS spokesman, replied through Twitter that “obstructionists in Congress should get to work”.
Dick Durbin Tobacco regulation
In 1987, Durbin introduced major tobacco regulation legislation in the House. This bill was to ban cigarette smoking on airline flights of two hours or less. He was joined by Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-FL), in saying that the rights of smokers to smoke ends where their smoking affects the health and safety of others, such as on airplanes.
The bill went on to pass as part of the 1988 transportation spending bill. In 1989, Congress banned cigarette smoking on all domestic airline flights.
In March 1994, Durbin proposed an amendment to Improving America’s Schools Act that required schools receiving Federal drug prevention money to teach elementary and secondary students about the dangers of tobacco, drugs, and alcohol. The amendment also required schools to warn students against tobacco and teach them how to resist peer pressure to smoke.
In February 2008, Durbin called on Congress to support a measure that would allow the Food and Drug Administration to oversee the tobacco industry.
This measure would require companies to disclose the contents of tobacco products, restrict advertising and promotions, and it would mandate the removal of harmful ingredients in tobacco products. The measure would also prohibit tobacco companies from using terms like “low risk,” “light,” and “mild” on the packaging.
Durbin attributes his stance against tobacco smoking to his father, who smoked two packs of Camel cigarettes a day and died of lung cancer.
Dick Durbin Russia
Durbin spearheaded a nonbinding resolution in July 2018 “warning President Trump not to let the Russian government question diplomats and other officials”.
The resolution states the United States “should refuse to make available any current or former diplomat, civil servant, political appointee, law enforcement official or member of the Armed Forces of the United States for questioning by the government of Vladimir Putin”. It passed 98-0.
In December 2018, after United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the Trump administration was suspending its obligations in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 60 days in the event that Russia continued to violate the treaty, Durbin was one of 26 senators to sign a letter expressing concern over the administration “now abandoning generations of bipartisan U.S. leadership around the paired goals of reducing the global role and number of nuclear weapons and ensuring strategic stability with America’s nuclear-armed adversaries” and calling on President Trump to continue arms negotiations.
Freedom of expression
In 2007, speaking as Senate Majority Whip, Durbin went on record as stating that “It’s time to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine.”
In 2010, Durbin cosponsored and passed from the committee the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act, a bill aiming to combat media piracy by blacklisting websites though many opposed to the bill argue that it violates First Amendment rights and promotes censorship.
The announcement of the bill was followed by a wave of protest from digital rights activists, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation calling it censorship and stating that action may be taken against all users of sites in which only some users are uploading infringing material.
Durbin was a sponsor of the PROTECT IP Act.
Dick Durbin Wife, Family, Children
Durbin and his wife Loretta have had three children, Christine, Jennifer, and Paul. After several weeks in the hospital with complications due to a congenital heart condition, Christine died on November 1, 2008.
Conflict of interest issues
Durbin’s wife Loretta was a lobbyist, and it was reported by the Chicago Tribune in 2014 that some of her “clients have received federal funding promoted by (Durbin)”.
In addition to announcing the award of monies to ten clients of his wife’s lobbying firm, these conflicts included her lobbying firm receiving a one-year contract with a housing nonprofit group around the time the senator went to bat for the organization; a state university receiving funds through an earmark by Durbin when his wife was its lobbyist; and Durbin arranging federal money for a public health nonprofit when his wife was seeking state support for the same group. The Durbin maintains that they try to avoid conflicts of interest, however.
Dick Durbin Religion
Dick Durbin is Roman Catholic. In 2004, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield in Illinois barred him from receiving communion because he voted against the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. The current bishop of the Diocese said Durbin stays away from his Springfield parish because “he doesn’t want to make a scene.”
Durbin responded to the communion ban in 2004 saying that he is accountable to his constituents, even if it means defying Church teachings.
In 2018, the decision to deny Durbin communion in the Springfield Diocese was affirmed by Bishop Thomas John Paprocki after Durbin’s vote against the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. Durbin continues to practice his faith, attending mass and receiving communion at Old Saint Patrick’s church in Chicago.
In 2017, Durbin was criticized by the editorial board at his alma mater, Georgetown, a Catholic university, for his requesting clarification of then-judicial nominee Amy Coney Barrett during her Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing, regarding her self-descriptive terminology, “orthodox Catholic.”
He contended that might unfairly characterize Catholics who may not agree with the church’s positions about abortion or the death penalty.
She contended, “litigants and the general public are entitled to impartial justice, and that may be something that a judge who is heedful of ecclesiastical pronouncements cannot dispense.” Barrett opined that judges aren’t bound by precedent conflicting with the Constitution.
Barrett wrote that judges could recuse themselves from hearing matters if their faith conflicted with issues to be decided in cases they might otherwise hear. An article in the conservative National Review contended, “Senators must inquire about these issues when considering lifetime appointments because ensuring impartiality and fidelity to precedent are critical for the rule of law.”
The issue prompted questions regarding the application of Article VI, Section 3 of the Constitution which mandates: “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”
When interests overlap for Durbin, a lobbyist wife
Sen. Dick Durbin has long said that he and his wife, Loretta, an Illinois lobbyist, take pains to separate their work and avoid conflicts of interest.
But a Tribune investigation has found instances in which Loretta Durbin’s clients have received federal funding promoted by her husband, raising questions about whether the power couple has done enough to avoid inherent conflicts of interest as they go about their jobs.
The Durbin sat down for an hourlong interview with the Tribune last week, and the U.S. senator acknowledged occasional “overlap” in which his wife’s clients received his help, but both insisted that she limited her lobbying to the state and never sought federal funds.
“We were never asked to do any federal lobbying, and we never did,” Loretta Durbin said.
Even so, her lobbying contracts with the city of Naperville, obtained by the Tribune through a public records request, stated that her firm would work with “state or federal government officials.”
Among the areas of overlap in the Durbins’ careers: her firm getting a one-year contract with a housing nonprofit group around the time the senator went to bat for the organization and others like it; a state university receiving funds earmarked by Durbin when his wife was its lobbyist; and Durbin arranging federal money for a public health nonprofit when his wife was seeking state support for the same group.
I have never, ever, ever referred a client to her. And she has not asked me ever to contact anybody on her behalf.
Loretta Durbin, 68, who said she plans to retire soon, has earned a total of at least $1.04 million in salary from lobbying since 1998, according to the senator’s annual financial disclosures. Sen. Durbin also makes his federal and state tax returns public.
The senator, 69, who is seeking his fourth term in the Nov. 4 election, said he has never helped his wife get business.
“People know the name because I’ve been around for a while,” the senator said. “But whether that helps or hurts her in attracting clients, you know, there are some people who are not wild about me and they may just decide they wouldn’t want to have my wife work for them.
But I have never, ever, ever referred a client to her. And she has not asked me ever to contact anybody on her behalf. We really tried our best to make this something where there’s a clear line between what we do.”
The couple said that once the decision had been made not to lobby the federal government, Sen. Durbin was not consulted when she considered new clients.
“Her decision and her partner’s decision, not mine,” the senator said. “And I trusted her judgment. I still do.”
Clients of Loretta Durbin’s Springfield-based firm have included nonprofit social service agencies as well as heavy hitters such as Chicago Title Insurance Co., pharmaceutical giant Wyeth and wholesale beverage distributor Wirtz Corp.
Her firm has lobbied the governor’s office, the General Assembly and state agencies such as the Department of Public Health, Department of Human Services and Department of Transportation, records show.
Two public clients — Naperville and Eastern Illinois University — have paid Loretta Durbin’s lobbying firm a total of more than $1 million, according to records.
Meredith McGehee, policy director at the Campaign Legal Center and an expert on ethics in lobbying, said the Durbins’ arrangement deserved a thorough airing.
“If you’re going to become a lobbyist, part of the deal is, everything you do is going to be gone over with a very bright light, and it should be,” she said. “So I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong, but it is inherently worth very close scrutiny, and the burden really should be on them to show that there aren’t conflicts.”
Craig Holman, a lobbyist and expert on government ethics at Public Citizen, a watchdog group, said that even though the Durbins have complied with Senate ethics rules, he found the circumstances “troubling.”
Holman perceived an “indirect” conflict of interest in Durbin securing or announcing federal money for his spouse’s clients. “It doesn’t run afoul of any of the congressional ethics rules or federal conflict-of-interest laws, but it does raise red flags in the sense that Durbin is getting credit for awarding grants or earmarks to some of the clients of his wife,” he said.
Started firm in 1997
Married for 47 years to a man who has become one of Illinois’ most influential politicians, Loretta Durbin has built a reputation of her own as a power player.
She was an assistant for two Democratic lawmakers in the Illinois Senate from 1985 to 1994, and before she started lobbying, she worked for the Illinois Commission on Intergovernmental Cooperation, whose work included tracking federal funds and legislation.
In the early 2000s, she helped start the Illinois Women’s Institute for Leadership, which trains Democratic women to run for elective office.
She created the Government Affairs Specialists Inc. lobbying firm with partner Alice Phillips in 1997, the year Dick Durbin entered the Senate after seven terms in the House. Phillips, a Republican, was the firm’s president, and Loretta Durbin, a Democrat, it’s vice president. She said they owned the firm 50-50.
Phillips, in an interview, said that when the women were opening the firm, they had concerns about working with clients whose needs might intersect with Sen. Durbin’s activities in Washington.
“We met with Dick and asked him, we said, ‘Are there any areas that you don’t want us involved in?'” Phillips said.
Sen. Durbin took the matter to the Senate Ethics Committee. He gave the Tribune a copy of its advisory letter, which said lobbying the Senate would be “left to the ultimate discretion of the Senator and his or her spouse,” but that representing clients before “state and local entities only” seemed permissible.
Phillips and the Durbin said the firm decided to focus its efforts in Illinois. “We stayed out of Washington,” Phillips said. “From day one, we didn’t want to get involved in that.”
The two women ran the firm for more than a decade, and Government Affairs Specialists closed in 2011 when Phillips retired and moved to Florida. Loretta Durbin then began her own firm: Government Affairs Consulting LLC. She now works on contract with J & J Legislative, a Springfield lobbying firm that picked up a number of her clients.
‘Call Durbin’
Sen. Durbin ranks second among Senate Democrats and, for many of his nearly 32 years in Congress, has been influential in making key decisions on how federal dollars are spent.
But determining the forces behind federal funding can be difficult.
Until recently, members of Congress could earmark pet projects for their states, but the lawmakers were required to attach their names to earmarks for only three years ending Sept. 30, 2010, said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group in Washington, Durbin ranked ninth among 100 senators in sponsoring or co-sponsoring earmarks in fiscal 2008. His ranking fell to 24th in 2009 and 43rd in 2010.
The Tribune identified four Durbin earmarks in which federal money benefited his wife’s clients in some way.
One was a previously reported $150,000 in funding for the American Lung Association of Illinois in the early 2000s, while Loretta Durbin was the group’s state lobbyist.
In three other cases, Durbin said his wife’s clients were among many entities that benefited from an earmark.
One was for teacher-training grants that helped a number of Illinois schools, including a Loretta Durbin client, Eastern Illinois.
“I mean, it wasn’t as if they received special treatment,” Sen. Durbin said. “If anything, you know, they had to wait in line. And that was the way it should be. And I didn’t say Eastern first, that’s my wife’s client. I wouldn’t do that.”
Two other earmarks involved Metra’s now-shelved STAR Line project, which would have linked the Joliet area and O’Hare International Airport and served Naperville, giving the city a vital transit link. Durbin said Naperville was one of about 100 communities that would have benefited and most sought his help.
The earmarks also were backed by other federal lawmakers from Illinois. STAR Line was a legislative priority for Naperville while Loretta Durbin represented the suburb.
While there’s a de facto moratorium on earmarks in Congress, lawmakers still try to persuade federal agencies to direct funds in specific ways.
In addition to earmarks, the Tribune asked Durbin and his staff about 10 grants that were announced by the senator’s office and awarded to Loretta Durbin’s clients. The senator said he had not weighed in on any of the grants, and he noted that some of them are set and awarded by a formula that does not take into account lawmakers’ preferences.
According to Durbin, when he and other lawmakers announce federal awards, that doesn’t necessarily mean they had anything to do with the funding decisions.
In September alone, Sen. Durbin’s office put out at least 18 news releases touting more than $91 million in funding for Illinois entities. Earlier awards announced by Durbin and given to Loretta Durbin’s clients included nearly $11 million in federal stimulus dollars for electrical smart grid technology in Naperville in 2009.
The same year, Durbin trumpeted more than $800,000 in stimulus money to Aunt Martha’s Youth Service Center, a longtime client of his wife’s lobbying firm.
But except in the case of earmarks, Durbin disputed the notion that such announcements demonstrated his influence over the funding. And he conceded that such announcements are a way for lawmakers to get the credit they don’t deserve.
“I think there’s a misunderstanding there,” the senator said. “And politicians do not try to disabuse you of that misunderstanding. We like to announce things when they’re good news for our states and districts. … The decision on the announcement is made by the executive branch.
And you wouldn’t be surprised to know that if it’s a Republican president, they’re probably going to call a Republican senator to make the announcement or a Republican congressman. And the opposite is true.”
In the case of each of the announced grants that were identified by the Tribune, Durbin said, “I did nothing in terms of securing the money.” Those decisions were made by the executive branch, he said.
“So the announcement is basically, like, a two- or three-day advance notice of an official executive branch announcement. … And they say, ‘OK, we’re going to make that announcement [next] Wednesday. Call Durbin. He can announce it Friday night,'” Durbin said.
Working for Naperville
Loretta Durbin and Alice Phillips lobbied for Naperville from 2006 to 2011, and their firm was paid a total of $425,000, plus expenses, records show. Their contracts said the women “will represent the city’s interests and act as a liaison with state or federal government officials.”
Loretta Durbin, asked about the wording, said Phillips usually handled the negotiations, though both of them signed the contracts. Both women said they had never been registered as federal lobbyists, and records confirm that.
Phillips said she didn’t recall agreeing to do any federal work for Naperville, but that the possibility of doing some federal lobbying for the suburb was not out of the question.
“We always felt, if they needed me to go to Washington, I could go, but not Loretta,” she said.
During the time the firm handled Naperville’s state lobbying, the suburb had no federal lobbyist.
Naperville is Illinois’ fifth-largest city, and it would have been a priority to Durbin whether his wife was associated with the suburb or not. Indeed, Naperville got plenty of federal funding during the time Loretta Durbin was its state lobbyist, including about $916,000 in HUD Community Development Block Grants, about $94,000 in justice assistance grants and $40,000 to replace trees hit by the emerald ash borer.
Current and former Naperville officials gave Loretta Durbin’s firm high marks but had differing views on whether she helped win federal dollars for the city.
“We did not use Government Affairs Specialists for any federal lobbying, to my recollection,” said Dan Di Santo, former assistant to the city manager.
Now an official in Bensenville, Di Santo worked closely with the two lobbyists. They even attended his wedding in St. Charles in 2008, with Loretta Durbin bringing her husband, he said.
He said the lobbying firm’s victories for Naperville included securing millions in state dollars to widen Illinois Route 59 and approval of a downtown food and beverage tax to pay for parking facilities.
Naperville police Chief Robert Marshall was on the panel that selected Government Affairs Specialists out of 10 or more applicants. He said the firm stood out because of its references and track record.
Marshall later was acting city manager for a year while the two women championed Naperville in the Illinois capital.
As for Loretta Durbin’s marriage to a senator, Marshall said, “I looked at it as an advantage. We could discuss some of the key issues with not only the people (state officials) that Loretta hooked us up with, but we could also talk to her husband, who was very influential in Washington.”
Marshall said he sat next to Sen. Durbin at a client dinner put on by the lobbying firm and they talked about federal legislation and sports.
Did Loretta Durbin help win federal grants for the city?
“I’m sure she did,” Marshall replied, later saying that he thinks she did but doesn’t know how.
Naperville Mayor George Pradel, a longtime friend of the senator’s, serves part-time since the city manager handles day-to-day municipal operations.
Talking about Loretta Durbin, he said: “It’s not that we felt that she could get to (Sen.) Durbin if we wanted something from Congress. … We looked at it that she was working for us, and we were considered her account, her baby.”
Did Sen. Durbin help Naperville with the smart grid millions?
“I would have to say I really don’t know. I hope he did,” Pradel said.
Ethics expert McGehee said spouses of lawmakers have a clear advantage as lobbyists because of their close ties to power. “I would assume that everybody and their brother in Illinois know who her husband is,” McGehee said of Durbin. “And that gives her, certainly, in some situations, that obviously gives her a leg up.”
Di Santo and Pradel said Loretta Durbin never flaunted the family name. “I think that Loretta treated us with extreme dedication because we were her clients,” Pradel said, “and it wasn’t at all ‘I’m Sen. Durbin’s wife.'”
Lung Association grant
In the early 2000s, while Loretta Durbin was a lobbyist for the American Lung Association of Illinois, Sen. Durbin pushed for a $150,000 federal grant for the group’s Springfield-based tobacco quitline, which helped veterans give up smoking.
Kathy Drea, a spokeswoman for the group — now the American Lung Association of the Upper Midwest — told the Tribune in an email that Loretta Durbin was not involved when the group “directly asked Sen. Durbin for one-time funding to help veterans (30 percent smoking prevalence) with smoking cessation.”
The group, which promotes healthy lungs and clean air, was a client of Loretta Durbin’s from 2000 through 2011. Sen. Durbin lost his father to lung cancer and is a staunch opponent of tobacco.
The senator said that while he knew to earmark the money could raise questions about his wife’s role as a lobbyist for the group, he deemed the quitline a worthy enough cause.
“I believe that I knew that Loretta was securing state funds for this,” Durbin said. “She did not ask me for any funds. …I said, someday, 10 years from now, two reporters from the Tribune may ask me, you know, ‘How did you, how could you explain this where you are helping one of your wife’s clients?’
And I’m just going to go out and do it because I think it’s the right thing to do for these veterans and because if anybody asked, I’ve got a hell of a long record when it comes to tobacco.”
The quitline funding did draw some attention from the press. Nearly a decade later, in 2009, his office chose not to publicly announce a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to the lung association’s Midwest chapter, even as he touted two other EPA grants awarded through the same program on the same day to Illinois entities.
On July 21, 2009, Sen. Durbin’s office put out a release announcing a $1 million EPA grant to the city of Chicago for projects to cut emissions and fuel usage, as well as $4.2 million to the Illinois EPA for clean diesel projects.
Not mentioned was a $3.7 million EPA grant to a Loretta Durbin client, the American Lung Association of the Upper Midwest. Records show the lung association funding was obligated on the same date that Durbin publicized the two similar grants.
“I don’t know anything about that,” Durbin said. “I can’t tell you why they weren’t — I did not make a conscious effort to exclude announcing anything in that regard. And there’s no reason I would.”
The money was awarded to the Springfield-based lung association to retrofit engine fleets in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana, but most of the funds were spent on fleets in Indiana, records show.
The lung association said it paid about $40,000 a year to Government Affairs Specialists. More recently, the fees have gone to J & J Legislative, the Illinois firm that contracts with Loretta Durbin.
‘Good job’ at EIU
Loretta Durbin’s firm was paid about $627,000 to lobby for Eastern Illinois from 1998 to 2011, records show. Under the agreements, the lobbyists also were paid expenses for items including the “entertainment of legislators, staff, and other relevant political persons,” with such costs usually capped at $1,000 per month.
President Bill Perry, who came on board in 2007 after their hiring, said they did a “particularly good job” setting up meetings in Springfield for university officials and keeping them apprised of legislation.
The work by Loretta Durbin and Phillips never strayed into federal turf, Perry said. Eastern does not have a federally registered lobbyist but, like other universities, depends on federal dollars. The “federal side” is handled by a university vice president, Perry said.
Over the years, Sen. Durbin announced big bucks for Eastern — along with other Illinois schools — in Library of Congress grants to train teachers to produce curriculum with the library’s digitized resources. The program now is called Teaching with Primary Sources, or TPS.
The TPS grants to Illinois, begun with a Sen. Durbin earmark, have brought Eastern $1.925 million for the program since 2004, its president said.
Sen. Durbin said Eastern was not one of the original Illinois recipients and, moreover, that the Library of Congress decides which schools are qualified. Eastern says on its website that the program was brought to its campus “thanks to the efforts of Sen. Dick Durbin.”
Perry said that, to his knowledge, neither of the Durbin went to bat for the university at the federal level.
When asked why Sen. Durbin was singled out for thanks in university statements about TPS, Perry said: “Someone could thank somebody, but the influence, in my experience in … all the federal grant areas, those things are insulated from the political process.”
Durbin said he was aware that his wife represented the university when he pushed for the funding.
“I made a conscious decision on Eastern,” the senator said. “And I made a conscious decision on the lung association. I just said I cannot deny these entities access to this money for this good purpose, for veterans, for teacher training.”
Supporting nonprofits
Among the nonprofits that Loretta Durbin and Phillips counted as clients, many are focused on helping the needy with housing and health care. One group got help from Sen. Durbin in the same year it hired his wife, records show.
Lakefront SRO was an organization that bought and built housing stock and converted it into affordable housing for Chicago’s homeless, said Stanley Logan, who was chairman of the board.
Logan said he could not remember why he penned a letter to the editor of the Chicago Tribune published in February 2003 in which he praised Sen. Durbin for “leading an effort to find a permanent funding source” for people served by the nonprofit and others like it.
Less than three months later, Lakefront SRO hired Loretta Durbin’s lobbying firm, records show. Their relationship lasted just a year.
Logan said Lakefront SRO constantly was seeking state and federal dollars, but that he could not recall why Loretta Durbin’s firm was hired.
“I’m sure she was very helpful,” he said. “I just don’t remember specifically what she did.”
Last week, Sen. Durbin told the Tribune that he had backed $150 million to help people who rely on groups like Lakefront SRO but was unsuccessful. The senator said it was another scenario in which he was focused on the cause, not the entities that stood to benefit.
“I didn’t make a conscious decision on this because I never knew about this Lakefront SRO at that point,” Durbin said.
But like the lung association and Eastern Illinois, Durbin acknowledged that his work on the issue also had the potential to touch on his wife’s business.
” ‘Overlap’ would cover when we are helping a category of people which includes one of her clients,” Durbin said. “And this is an example of that.”
Senate rules
Senate rules don’t address the issue of lawmaker spouses who lobby at the state level. But spouses who lobby at the federal level long have been prohibited from advocating for clients with the senator to whom they are married.
In a 2007 law, that ban was enlarged to prohibit such a spouse from lobbying any Senate office. But a grandfather clause said the wider prohibition would not apply if the spouse was a federal lobbyist for at least one year before the senator’s most recent election or had lobbied for at least a year before their marriage.
The Durbins’ son, Paul, a lawyer for Miller Canfield in Chicago, was a registered Illinois lobbyist only in 2007, records show. He told the Tribune that registering as a lobbyist was a formality.
Other members of Congress from Illinois also have had lobbyists in their family trees.
Former Rep. Bill Lipinski, D-Ill., the father of Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill., is a lobbyist in Illinois, an aide to the congressman said. Soraida Gutierrez, the wife of Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., is a former state lobbyist, records show.
Bob Creamer, the husband of Rep. Jan Schakowsky, formerly lobbied on the federal level through a firm, Strategic Consulting Group, NA Inc., and on the state level for Citizen Action/Illinois, a Schakowsky aide said.
Gene Callahan, the late father of Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., was a federal lobbyist for Major League Baseball, an aide to the congresswoman said.
In the November election, Durbin is being challenged by state Sen. Jim Oberweis, a Republican from west suburban Sugar Grove, and Sharon Hansen, a Libertarian from Pontiac.
McGehee, the lobbying ethics expert, gave the Durbins credit for discussing potential conflicts:
“Often, they don’t even think about it because they’re so convinced of their own good motivations. I see this a lot with politicians. It doesn’t even occur to them. … It’s just that somebody else looks at it and says, wait a minute, your wife’s a lobbyist. But it’s to his credit that he was willing to sit down and go through this as opposed to saying there’s no story there and just close the door.”
Dick Durbin The financial crisis of 2007–2010
On April 27, 2009, in an interview with WJJG talk radio host Ray Hanania, Durbin accused banks of creating the financial crisis of 2007–2010. Durbin expressed a belief that many of the banks responsible for creating the crisis “own the place,” referring to the power wielded by the banking lobby on Capitol Hill.
On September 18, 2008, Durbin attended a closed meeting with congressional leaders, then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, and was urged to craft legislation to help financially troubled banks. That same day (trade effective the next day), Durbin sold mutual-fund shares worth $42,696 and reinvested it all with Warren Buffett.
On February 26, 2009, Durbin introduced the Protecting Consumers from Unreasonable Credit Rates Act of 2009, calling for a maximum annual interest rate cap of 36%, including all interest and fees. This bill was intended to put an end to predatory lending activities.
Dick Durbin Rod Blagojevich
Shortly after Governor Rod Blagojevich’s arrest on federal corruption charges on December 9, 2008, Durbin called for the Illinois legislature to quickly pass legislation for a special election to fill then President-elect Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat. He stated that no United States Senate appointment of Blagojevich’s could produce a credible replacement under the circumstances.
Durbin and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid led all 50 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus in writing Illinois Governor Blagojevich to urge him to resign and not name a successor to Obama following Blagojevich’s arrest.
Dick Durbin Trade
In January 2005, Durbin changed his longstanding position on sugar tariffs and price supports. After several years of voting to keep sugar quotas and price supports, Durbin now favors abolishing the program.
“The sugar program depended on congressmen like me from states that grew corn,” Durbin said, referring to the fact that, though they were formerly a single entity, the sugar market and the corn syrup market are now largely separate.
In May 2006, Durbin campaigned to maintain a $0.54 per gallon tariff on imported ethanol. Durbin justified the tariff by joining Barack Obama in stating that “ethanol imports are neither necessary nor a practical response to current gasoline prices,” arguing instead that domestic ethanol production is sufficient and expanding. The American Coalition for Ethanol gave him a rating of 100%.
American Airlines praised him for arguing for the need to lower rising oil prices.
Dick Durbin Environment
Among Durbin’s legislative causes are environmental protection, particularly the protection of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. League of Conservation Voters gives him a rating of 89%. Sierra Club gives him a 90% rating.
Dick Durbin Other positions
Durbin has also been a major proponent of expanded Amtrak funding and support. In October 2007, he opposed a bill in the Illinois General Assembly that would allow three casinos to be built, saying, “I really, really think we ought to stop and catch our breath and say, ‘Is this the future of Illinois? That every time we want to do something we’ll just build more casinos?'”
Durbin reintroduced the Fair Elections Now Act during the 112th Congress. The bill would provide public funds to candidates who do not take political donations larger than $100 from any donor.
In April 2013, Durbin chaired a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights concerning the moral, legal and constitutional issues surrounding targeted killings and the use of drones. Durbin stated, “Many in the national security community are concerned that we may undermine our counter-terrorism efforts if we do not carefully measure the benefits and costs of a targeted killing.”
In August 2013, Durbin was one of twenty-three Democratic senators to sign a letter to the Defense Department warning of some payday lenders “offering predatory loan products to service members at exorbitant triple-digit effective interest rates and loan products that do not include the additional protections envisioned by the law” and asserting that service members along with their families “deserve the strongest possible protections and swift action to ensure that all forms of credit offered to members of our armed forces are safe and sound.”
In June 2015, Durbin sent a letter to the prime minister of Ukraine, Arseniy Yatsinuk, about fully supporting of Yatsinuk’s efforts of governing.
In March 2018, Durbin was one of 10 senators to sign a letter spearheaded by Jeff Merkley lambasting a proposal from FCC Chairman Ajit Pai that would curb the scope of benefits from the Lifeline program during a period where roughly 6.5 million people in poor communities relied on Lifeline to receive access to high-speed internet, citing that it was Pai’s “obligation to the American public, as the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, to improve the Lifeline program and ensure that more Americans can afford access, and have means of access, to broadband and phone service.”
The senators also advocated for ensuring “Lifeline reaches more Americans in need of access to communication services.”
In March 2019, Durbin was one of 10 Democratic senators to sign a letter to Salman of Saudi Arabia requesting the release of human rights lawyer Waleed Abu al-Khair and writer Raif Badawi, women’s rights activists Loujain al-Hathloul and Samar Badawi, and Dr. Walid Fitaih.
The senators wrote, “Not only have reputable international organizations detailed the arbitrary detention of peaceful activists and dissidents without trial for long periods, but the systematic discrimination against women, religious minorities and mistreatment of migrant workers and others has also been well-documented.”
In April 2019, Durbin was one of 34 senators to sign a letter to President Trump encouraging him “to listen to members of your own Administration and reverse a decision that will damage our national security and aggravate conditions inside Central America”, asserting that Trump had “consistently expressed a flawed understanding of U.S. foreign assistance” since becoming president and that he was “personally undermining efforts to promote U.S. national security and economic prosperity” through preventing the use of the Fiscal Year 2018 national security funding.
The senators argued that foreign assistance to Central American countries created less migration to the U.S., citing the funding’s helping to improve conditions in those countries.
In April 2019, Durbin was one of 6 senators to send a letter to Director of the CFPB Kathy Kraninger expressing concern “CFPB leadership has abandoned its supervision and enforcement activities related to federal student loan servicers” and opined that such behavior displayed “a shocking disregard for the financial well-being of our nation’s public servants, including teachers, first responders, and members of the military.”
The senators requested that Kraninger clarify the role of the CFPB in overseeing the Public Service Loan Forgiveness’s student loan servicers handling since December 2017 such as examinations made by the CFPB.
In April 2019, Durbin was one of 41 senators to sign a bipartisan letter to the housing subcommittee praising the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Section 4 Capacity Building program as authorizing “HUD to partner with national nonprofit community development organizations to provide education, training,…
and financial support to local community development corporations (CDCs) across the country” and expressing disappointment that President Trump’s budget “has slated this program for elimination after decades of successful economic and community development.” The senators wrote of their hope that the subcommittee would support continued funding for Section 4 in Fiscal Year 2020.
Dick Durbin Guantanamo interrogation criticism
Durbin received media attention on June 14, 2005, when in the U.S. Senate chambers he compared interrogation techniques used at Camp X-Ray, Guantanamo Bay, as reported by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to those utilized by such regimes as Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and the Khmer Rouge:
When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here – I almost hesitate to put them in the record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:
On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water.
Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18–24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold… On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees.
The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.
If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime – Pol Pot or others – that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.
Durbin’s comments drew widespread criticism that comparing U.S. actions to such regimes insulted the United States and victims of genocide. Radio host Rush Limbaugh and White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove accused Durbin of treason, while former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich called on the Senate to censure Durbin.
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, whose son Patrick was serving in U.S. Army, also called on Durbin to apologize for his remarks, saying that he thought it was a “disgrace to say that any man or woman in the military would act like that.
“John Wertheim, Democratic state party chairman of New Mexico, and Jim Pederson, Arizona Democratic party chairman, also criticized Durbin’s remarks. The leader of the Veterans of Foreign Wars also demanded an apology, as did the Anti-Defamation League
Durbin initially did not apologize, but on June 21, 2005, he went before the Senate, saying, “More than most people, a senator lives by his words … occasionally words fail us, occasionally we will fail words.”
Andrew Sullivan, a former editor of The New Republic, praised Durbin for raising serious moral issues about U.S. policy. Other commentators, including liberal commentator Markos Moulitsas Zúniga of Daily Kos, condemned Durbin for apologizing to his critics, arguing Durbin made a mistake in making himself, rather than detention and torture concerns at Guantanamo Bay, the focus of media coverage.
Dick Durbin Attempts to remove PAC radio advertisements
In July 2014, Americas PAC, a Political Action Committee designed to elect conservative Republicans, released a radio advertisement attacking Durbin on his staff salaries. This was based upon a Washington Times article that stated Durbin’s female staff members made $11,000 less annually than his male staffers.
In response, lawyers representing Durbin submitted a letter claiming the information in the ad was false and that the radio stations would be liable for airing the ad, with the possibility of losing their FCC license.
The radio station stated the sources provided to back up the information provided by Americas PAC were checked and proved to be in line and that they would keep the radio advertisement on air.
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