Norm Coleman
Norm Coleman | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Junior Senator, Minnesota | |
| In office January 2003–Present | |
| Preceded by | Dean Barkley (2 months) Paul Wellstone |
| Succeeded by | Incumbent (2009) |
| Personal details | |
| Nationality | american |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse | Laurie Coleman |
Norman Bertram "Norm" Coleman Jr. (born August 17 1949) is an American politician and a member of the Republican Party. He has been a U.S. Senator from Minnesota since 2003, and is currently chair of the Senate's permanent subcommittee on investigations. He was mayor of Saint Paul, Minnesota from 1994 to 2002. Previously a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, Coleman switched to the Republican Party of Minnesota in 1996. In 1998, he unsuccessfully ran for Governor of Minnesota against victorious former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura from the Reform Party of Minnesota (now known as the Independence Party) and DFL candidate Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III.
Biography
Coleman was born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York, Coleman received his Bachelor of Arts from Hofstra University and law degree with high honors from the University of Iowa. His wife, aspiring actress Laurie Coleman, lives in Los Angeles. They have two children, Jacob and Sarah. Two other children died during infancy (Adam, 1983; Grace, 1992) from a rare genetic disorder known as Zellweger syndrome. [1]
2002 Senate election
Coleman campaigned in 2002 for the United States Senate, after being persuaded by Karl Rove not to run again for governor. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2002, narrowly defeating former Vice President Walter Mondale, who entered the race within days of the election after Sen. Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash. Coleman succeeded Dean Barkley, who was appointed by Governor Jesse Ventura to serve the remaining two months of Wellstone's term.
2008 Senate election
Radio talk show personality and comedian Al Franken has announced that he may run for Coleman's Senate seat in the 2008 election.
Coleman in the Senate
Coleman is a member of four Senate committees including the Committee on Foreign Relations, the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee, and the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. He is also Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. In 2004 Coleman campaigned for the chairmanship of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (N.R.S.C.), but was narrowly defeated for the post by North Carolina Senator Elizabeth Dole in a close 28-27 vote. Coleman's Northstar Leadership PAC made over $200,000 worth of contributions to other Republican senators that were up for reelection during his failed campaign for the NRSC chair. [2]
Coleman's politics
Coleman's politics have changed dramatically throughout his political career. In college, Coleman was a liberal Democrat and was actively involved in the anti-war movement of the early 1970s. He ran for student senate and opined in the school newspaper that his fellow students should vote for him because he knew that "these conservative kids don't fuck or get high like we do (purity, you know)... Already the cries of motherhood, apple pie, and Jim Buckley reverberate thorough the halls of the Student Center. Everyone watch out, the 1950s bobby-sox generation is about to take over." [3]
He was once suspended from Hofstra University for participating in a sit-in protest against the 1970 shootings at Kent State. When first elected mayor of the City of Saint Paul in 1993, Coleman was a DFLer and considered left-of-center politically, but gradually shifted to much more conservative positions on many issues during his tenure.
While running for Mayor of Saint Paul in 1993, Coleman wrote in a letter to the City Convention Delegates: "I have never sought any other political office. I have no other ambition other then to be mayor." He goes on in the same letter to say:
I am a lifelong Democrat. Some accuse me of being the fiscal conservative in this race -- I plead guilty! I'm not afraid to be tight with your tax dollars.
Yet, my fiscal conservatism does not mean I am any less progressive in my Democratic ideals. From Bobby Kennedy to George McGovern to Warren Spannaus to Hubert Humphrey to Walter Mondale -- my commitment to the great values of our party has remained solid.
In December 1996, Coleman announced he was leaving the DFL party to join the Republican Party. Coleman cited his views on abortion and homosexuality as factors in the switch. Some of Coleman's critics in Minnesota speculated that his switch was motivated by his known aspirations for statewide office -- something that would have been difficult considering distrust of him by DFL party leaders. Coleman was re-elected in 1997 despite being a Republican in an overwhelmingly Democratic city. Coleman's current political positions generally range from centrist to conservative.
Ironically, prior to becoming a Republican and running against him in 2002, Coleman chaired Paul Wellstone's Senate re-election campaign in 1996. While making the Wellstone nomination speech at the 1996 state DFL convention, Coleman stated: "Paul Wellstone is a Democrat, and I am a Democrat." At this point in time, tensions were so high between Coleman and the DFL party that a number of delegates at the convention were loudly booing Coleman's speech.[4]
Coleman is a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership.
Positions on abortion and stem-cell research
Sen. Coleman currently identifies himself as being pro-life – he universally opposes abortion rights. At one time he was pro-choice, but he has campaigned as pro-life since at least 1993.Template:Fn Coleman attributes his position on abortion to the death of two of his four children in infancy from a rare genetic disease. He supports stem cell research, but only using adult stem cells and stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood.
Position on gay rights issues
Coleman opposes the legal recognition of same-sex marriages or civil unions by either the federal or state governments.
- As mayor of St. Paul, Coleman voted against an effort to repeal a city law which prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation.
- Coleman later refused to sign a city proclamation celebrating the annual gay pride festival.[5]
- While running for Governor of Minnesota in 1998, Coleman's campaign ran radio ads that attacked his DFL opponent Skip Humphrey for his support of gay rights.
- In his 2002 Senate campaign, Coleman pledged support for a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution that would ban any state from recognizing either same-sex marriage or similar civil unions.
- In 2004, Coleman voted to end a bipartisan filibuster on that proposed amendment to the Constitution (Senate vote 155, July 14, 2004). The vote failed 48-50. He voted again with proponents of a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage in June 2006.[6]
Ties to the George W. Bush administration
Critics of Coleman in Minnesota argue that he campaigned on using bipartisan efforts to "get things done" in the Senate,[7] but in his first year in office he voted with President Bush's position on bills 98 percent of the time (according to Congressional Quarterly statistics).
Coleman became the lead Senate Republican defender of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove amid allegations of him illegally leaking the name of a covert CIA operative. Rove reportedly convinced Coleman on behalf of the Bush Administration to seek a Senate seat in 2002 instead of running again for governor of Minnesota. [citation needed] In December 2005, Coleman voted for a budget bill that cut funding from a number of programs, but kept funding for sugar beet farmers in Minnesota after Rove advocated the change. Coleman told Congress Daily that he wouldn't vote for a bill that cut sugarbeet funding but "Karl Rove called me and asked what I wanted. A few hours later it was out of the bill."[8]
On March 14, 2006 Sen. Coleman called on President Bush to replace or reorganize his staff, stating that they didn't sufficiently have their "ears to the ground" on matters like Hurricane Katrina, Harriet Miers' failed Supreme Court nomination, and the Dubai Ports World controversy and accusing the administration of having a "tin ear." [9]. He stated that they showed inadequate "political sensitivity" in their handling of the issues.
Position on CAFTA free trade agreement
Senator Coleman expressed reservations about supporting CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement) unless the interests of the domestic U.S. sugar industry (including Minnesota's sugar beet industry) were accommodated.[10] He voted in favor of CAFTA after obtaining quotas imposed on foreign sugar until 2008. He stood behind President Bush on August 2 2005, as the trade agreement was signed into law. [11] "This is a 3 year insurance policy that I have purchased for my sugar farmers..." he said. [12]
Position on drilling in ANWR
On December 21 2005, Senator Coleman voted to end debate on a defense appropriations bill that included oil exploitation in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) after having pledged in 2002 to oppose such drilling. He stated that he did so because although he planned to vote against the bill, he didn't believe that a filibuster was warranted. In spite of this, many environmental advocacy groups (most notably the Sierra Club) viewed his vote as a betrayal of his promise. His vote notwithstanding, the filibuster held, and Coleman voted to strip the ANWR provision from the bill in a subsequent vote.[13][14] [15] [16] [17]
Investigations Subcommittee and Galloway Testimony
In December 2004, in connection with his position of Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Coleman called for United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan to resign because of the "UN's utter failure to detect or stop Saddam's abuses" in the UN's Oil-for-Food program and because of fraud allegations against Annan's son relating to the same program. In May 2005 Coleman's subcommittee held hearings on their investigation of abuses of the UN Oil-for-Food program, including oil smuggling, illegal kickbacks and use of surcharges, and Saddam Hussein's use of oil vouchers for the purpose of buying influence abroad. These hearings covered certain corporations, several well-known political figures, but are much remembered for the appearance of British Member of Parliament George Galloway in which the MP responded forcefully to the allegations.
"We have your name on Iraqi documents, some prepared before the fall of Saddam, some after, that identify you as one of the allocation holders," Coleman accused. "I am not now nor have I ever been an oil trader" retorted Galloway, stating that the charges were false and part of a diversionary "smoke screen" by pro-Iraq war U.S. politicians to deflect attention from the "theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth... on your watch" that had occurred not during the Oil-for-Food program but under the post-invasion Coalition Provisional Authority by "Haliburton and other American corporations... with the connivance of your own government." Galloway claimed that the subcommittee's dossier was full of distortions and rudimentary mistakes, citing, for example, the charge that he had met with Saddam Hussein "many times" when the number was two. [18] This unusual appearance of a British MP before a US Senate committee drew much media attention in both America and Britain. [19]
The Majority Staff of the subcomittee prepared a subsequent report pertaining to Galloway which was released in October, 2005. It elaborates on the allegations and evidence of the committee and includes disputed [20] testimony from former Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz. It also alleges that another officer of Mariam Appeal, Galloway's then-wife, received $150,000 in oil kickbacks, which she denies. [21] [22]Sen. Coleman pushed these reports to the US Department of Justice, the Manhattan DA, the Washington DC and New York federal prosecutors, the UK Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, and the Charity Commission. As of June 3, 2006 none had seen fit to pursue charges.[23][24]
On June 2, 2006, Sen. Coleman responded to criticism that he had insufficiently investigated the Australian Wheat Board for sanctions busting, saying that there were legal and cost hurdles. [25][26]
Coleman in the media
On February 28, 2006 Sen. Coleman said that he would introduce a bill that would ban foreign companies from operating ports in the United States. [27] His political opponents have criticized him for inconsistency, because of his votes against some increases in port security funding before the Dubai Ports World controversy.[28]
On February 10, 2006, in a meeting of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs of which Coleman is a member, during testimony of former FEMA director Michael D. Brown, Coleman attacked Brown for poor leadership during Hurricane Katrina disaster relief efforts, "you didn't provide the leadership, even with structural infirmities." Coleman went on, "you're not prepared to kind of put a mirror in front of your face and recognize your own inadequacies" and "the record reflects that you didn't get it or you didn't in writing or in some way make commands that would move people to do what has to be done until way after it should have been done." [29] Brown responded combatively, "well, Senator, that's very easy for you to say sitting behind that dais and not being there in the middle of that disaster, watching that human suffering and watching those people dying and trying to deal with those structural dysfunctionalities" [30] and implored Coleman to stick to questions. [31] He later likened Coleman's charges to a "drive-by shooting." [32] Brown had recently stated that he notified Department of Homeland Security and the White House of the tremendous scale of Katrina flooding earlier than had been previously reported. [33]
On January 30, 2006, it was reported that Norm Coleman's staff had been actively editing his (this) entry on Wikipedia, removing critical references to his voting record and revising the description of his former political leanings. [34] [35][36] Similar instances of edits to several senators' pages originating from Congressional IP addresses have occurred. [37] Coleman's chief of staff said the editing was done to correct inaccuracies,[38] but Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said "it appears to be a major rewrite of the article to make it more favorable." [39]
Electoral history
- 2002 Race for U.S. Senate
- Norm Coleman (R), 49.53%
- Walter Mondale (DFL), 47.34%
- 1998 Race for Governor
- Jesse Ventura (Ref.), 37%
- Norm Coleman (R), 34%
- Hubert H. Humphrey III (DFL), 28%
- 1997 Race for Mayor (St. Paul, MN)
- Norm Coleman (R) (inc.), 59%
- Sandy Pappas (DFL), 41%
- 1993 Race for Mayor (St. Paul, MN)
- Norm Coleman (DFL), 55%
- Andy Dawkins (DFL), 44%
References
- Template:Fnb Star Tribune, 8 March, 1993, "Mayoral hopeful pits self against the city's DFL establishment"
- 1993 Letter from Norm Coleman to the Saint Paul City Convention Delegates - addressed: "Dear DFL Ward Convention Attendee."
External links
- U.S. Senate Website
- Campaign Website
- Norm Coleman on the Issues
- Information from Project Vote Smart
- Coleman Staff Makes Changes To Wikipedia Bio
- A satirical site critical of Coleman's ties to the Bush Administration
- Cosmetic surgeon brags about his work on Sen. Norm Coleman
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