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Amy Klobuchar

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Amy Jean Klobuchar (pronounced "KLOH-buh-shar") (born May 25, 1960) is the junior United States Senator from Minnesota. She is a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, an affiliate of the Democratic Party. She is the first woman elected to the Senate from Minnesota and is one of two female senators in the 110th United States Congress freshman class. Formerly county attorney of Hennepin County, she was the chief prosecutor for the most populous county in Minnesota. Klobuchar was a legal advisor to former U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale and partner in two prominent law firms.

Family and education

Born in Plymouth, Minnesota, Klobuchar is the daughter of Jim Klobuchar, an author and retired sportswriter and columnist for the Star Tribune, and Rose Katherine Heuberger, who retired at age 70 from teaching second grade. Jim Klobuchar's grandparents were Slovenian immigrants to the U.S. and his father was a miner on the Iron Range; Klobuchar's maternal grandparents were from Switzerland. Amy's husband, John Bessler, is an attorney in private practice. He is a native of Mankato, where he attended Loyola High School, and is a graduate of the University of Minnesota. Amy and John were married in 1993, and they have a daughter, Abigail Klobuchar Bessler, who was born in 1995.

Klobuchar attended public schools in Plymouth and was valedictorian at Wayzata High School. She received her bachelor's degree magna cum laude in political science from Yale University in 1982, where she was a member of the Yale College Democrats and the Feminist Caucus. Her senior thesis is now a college textbook that is still widely used. Published as Uncovering the Dome, the 150-page history describes the ten years of politics surrounding the building of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis. Klobuchar served as an associate editor of the Law Review and received her J.D. in 1985 at the University of Chicago Law School.

Career

Klobuchar was elected county attorney in 1998 and re-elected in 2002 with no opposition. In 2001 Minnesota Lawyer named her "Attorney of the Year". Klobuchar was president of the Minnesota County Attorneys Association from November 2002 to November 2003. Besides working as a prosecutor, Klobuchar was a partner at Dorsey & Whitney, where former Vice President Walter Mondale also works, and a partner at another top Minnesota law firm Gray Plant Mooty before seeking public office.

2006 Senate election

Klobuchar was recognized early as a favorite for the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party nomination in 2006 for the U.S. Senate seat then held by Mark Dayton. Dayton announced in early 2005 that he would not seek re-election. EMILY's List endorsed Klobuchar on September 29 2005. Klobuchar won the DFL's endorsement on June 9 2006.

Klobuchar gained the support of the majority of DFL state legislators in Minnesota during the primaries. A poll taken of DFL state delegates showed Klobuchar beating her then closest opponent, Patty Wetterling, 66% to 15%. In January, Wetterling dropped out of the race and endorsed Klobuchar. Former Senate candidate and prominent lawyer Mike Ciresi, who was widely seen as a serious potential DFL candidate, indicated in early February that he would not enter the race; that removal of her most significant potential competitor for the DFL nomination was viewed as an important boost for Klobuchar. The only other serious candidate for the DFL endorsement was veterinarian Ford Bell, who dropped out of the race in July and also endorsed Klobuchar.

In the general election, she faced Republican candidate Mark Kennedy, Independence Party candidate Robert Fitzgerald, Constitution candidate Ben Powers, and Green Party candidate Michael Cavlan. Klobuchar consistently led Kennedy throughout the campaign by single or double digits depending on the poll. She won with 58% of the vote over Kennedy's 38% and the Independence Party's candidate Robert Fitzgerald at 3% and won all but eight of Minnesota's 87 counties. This landslide victory was the largest U.S. Senate election margin in Minnesota since the 1978 special election.

Klobuchar became the first elected female Senator from Minnesota. Muriel Humphrey, the state's first female senator, was appointed to fill her husband's unexpired term and not elected.

Committee placement

As of November 14, 2006, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) named Amy Klobuchar to the following committees:

  • Senate Agriculture Committee

    • Subcommittee on Energy, Science and Technology
    • Subcommittee on Nutrition and Food Assistance, Sustainable and Organic Agriculture, and General Legislation
    • Subcommittee on Production, Income Protection and Price Support
  • Senate Environment and Public Works Committee

    • Subcommittee on Public Sector Solutions to Global Warming, Oversight, and Children's Health Protection
    • Subcommittee on Transportation Safety, Infrastructure Security, and Water Quality
  • Senate Commerce Committee

    • Subcommittee on Aviation Operations, Safety, and Security
    • Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs, Insurance, and Automotive Safety
    • Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard
    • Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Innovation
    • Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety and Security
  • Congressional Joint Economic Committee

This continues the practice of Minnesota having two spots on the United States Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, taking Mark Dayton’s spot and joining Minnesota's senior Senator Norm Coleman. Klobuchar said, "the Ag Committee is something I told the people of the state was the committee I wanted to join, because the farm bill is up in 2007. So that's critically important to Minnesota." Klobuchar stated she would be “98th in Senate seniority, a ranking which affects everything from office space to committee assignments.” A late January, 2007 Survey USA poll showed Klobuchar to be popular in Minnesota; her approval rating was 56%.

U.S. Senate

In March 2007, Klobuchar went on an official trip to Iraq with fellow colleagues, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK); Klobuchar returned with a pessimistic note for the Iraqi cabinet, but noted that U.S. troops were completing their job and work working arduously to train the Iraqis, but voiced her frustration with Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki.

Within days after the collapse of the I-35W Mississippi River bridge, Klobuchar introduced and succeeded in passing legislation to appropriate $250 million to Mn/DOT to quickly build a replacement bridge.

In August 2007, 58 percent of Minnesotans approved of the job she was doing, with 33% disapproving.

As of December 2007, 60% of Minnesotans approve of the job she is doing, with 34% disapproving.

Political positions

As a Democrat, Klobuchar's political positions have generally been in line with modern liberalism in the United States. She is pro-choice, supports LGBT rights, favors federal social services such as Social Security and universal health care, and is critical of President Bush's Iraq War.

Klobuchar opposed President Bush's plan to increase troop levels in Iraq in January 2007. After president Bush vetoed a bill that would fund the troops, but would impose time limits on the Iraq War, (which Klobuchar voted for) and supporters failed to garner enough congressional votes to override his veto, in May 2007 she voted for additional funding for Iraq without such time limits, saying she "simply could not stomach the idea of using our soldiers as bargaining chips".

Klobuchar opposes free trade agreements that cause loss of jobs in the U.S. However, she has wavered on her opposition on such trade agreements since her election. A current trade agreement with Peru may achieve her support on grounds of expanded labor and environmental protections, even though they contain the same language of past trade agreements.

In August 2007, Klobuchar was one of only 16 Democratic Senators and 41 Democratic House members to vote in favor of the controversial "Protect America Act", which was widely seen as eroding the civil liberty protections of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and posing difficult questions relative to the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. She did, however, vote against granting legal immunity to telecom corporations that cooperated with the NSA warrantless surveillance program.

Klobuchar voted in favor of the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2008 which included a provision to ban the use of waterboarding by the United States.

Electoral history

Footnotes

External links

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