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Senator Jim Talent campaigned for the United States Senate on a platform of health care, job creation, economic growth and national defense. Missourians elected him to serve the state in the U.S. Senate in November 2002. Previously, Sen. Talent served eight years in the U.S. House of Representatives (1993-2001) and eight years in the Missouri House (1985-1992).

Sen. Talent is supporting Missouri interests on four key committees: The Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee; the Senate Armed Services Committee; the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee; and the Senate Aging Committee.

As a freshman Senator, he holds numerous Senate leadership positions. Sen. Talent is the Chairman of the Armed Services Seapower Subcommittee and the Chairman of the Agriculture Committee's Subcommittee on Marketing, Inspection, and Product Promotion. In addition, Sen. Talent is a member of President Bush's Export Council and he was selected to serve as a Deputy Whip.

Sen. Talent is working to be Missouri's health care senator. He introduced the Small Business Health Fairness Act to provide health care to small business owners and workers through Association Health Plans (AHPs). The bill would provide health insurance to millions of uninsured Americans by allowing small business men and women to purchase health care plans for themselves and their employees through their trade associations.

To help the more than 70,000 individuals, mostly African-Americans, with Sickle Cell Disease, Sen. Talent introduced the Sickle Cell Treatment Act to help expand treatment and services for patients with the disease. The legislation has been called the most significant Sickle Cell Disease legislation to be introduced in 20 years.

As a member of the Energy Committee, Sen. Talent is supporting a pro-jobs, pro-growth energy bill to help stimulate the economy, reduce energy prices and increase our energy independence. In addition, he has introduced renewable fuels legislation, the Reliable Fuels Act, which would secure a market for ethanol for our producers, create jobs in Missouri and reduce our dependence on foreign sources of fuel.

In an effort to build on the success of the historic, bipartisan 1996 welfare reform law, Sen. Talent has introduced the Compassion and Personal Responsibility Act. This anti-poverty legislation will help more people realize the American dream through work, independence, opportunity and healthy marriages. President Bush and the Senate leadership support Sen. Talent's bill.

The U.S. House of Representatives

As a freshman congressman, he introduced the Real Welfare Reform Act of 1994, which subsequently became the basis for the historic bipartisan welfare reform bill, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996. The legislation has resulted in 4.2 million people moving from dependency on the government to jobs and self-sufficiency.

Sen. Talent served for eight years on the Armed Services Committee. In that capacity, he waged a long battle, against both the Clinton Administration and budget hawks in his own party, to protect America's armed forces from cuts in size and funding. Also as a freshman, Sen. Talent formed a special congressional committee to address the decline in readiness of America's military.

Sen. Talent was a member of the House Armed Services Committee in 1997 when, in order to save money, the Republican leadership of that committee attempted to discontinue production of the Missouri-built F-18 Super Hornet. This carrier-based aircraft was the Navy's top acquisition priority for a number of years running and was considered the key to the ability of the United States to project power through its aircraft carriers in the decades to come. The effort to discontinue the aircraft succeeded in subcommittee, but Sen. Talent led an initiative against his own arty leadership to restore the aircraft in full committee. That effort succeeded on a close, bipartisan vote, as the full committee overruled its own Chairman and subcommittee - a highly unusual outcome in Congress.

The F-18 Super Hornet has since exceeded all expectations and has become the linchpin of naval aviation. The aircraft continues to earn the wholehearted praise of Navy pilots for its performance off the USS Abraham Lincoln and in the skies over Iraq. The Super Hornet directly employs nearly 10,000 people in Missouri and Sen. Talent's initiative helped sustain and create thousands of jobs for Missourians.

For eight years, Sen. Talent served on the House Small Business Committee. In 1997, he was named Chairman of the committee where he was the youngest Chairman in Congress. In that capacity he fought successfully for tax and regulatory relief for small business people across America. In particular, he succeeded in permitting small business men and women to deduct the cost of their health insurance, restoring the tax deduction for those operating businesses at home, helping women start their own businesses and bolstering loan programs to help individuals who want to start their own small businesses. During this period the Congress also took the first steps towards eliminating the estate tax - one of Sen. Talent's priorities.

He twice passed out of the U.S. House of Representatives Association Health Plans legislation that would permit small business people to join together and buy health insurance through their trade associations - legislation that would reduce by millions the number of uninsured people in the country without any cost to the taxpayer.

Under Sen. Talent's leadership, the Small Business Committee became the most bipartisan in the House. Sen. Talent constantly promoted the idea that small business is the avenue of opportunity for people of all backgrounds and socio-economic status. In addition, as Chairman, Sen. Talent was scrupulous in respecting the prerogatives of all the members of the Small Business Committee, including those of the other Party. As a result, the committee passed an overwhelming number of bills without a single, dissenting Democrat vote, which made Sen. Talent's committee one of the most effective in the 106th Congress.

Sen. Talent fought to preserve and protect Social Security and voted to strengthen and save Medicare. He voted to make prescription drugs affordable and available for all seniors. In addition, Sen. Talent was an original co-sponsor of the first Patients' Bill of Rights that passed the House in 1998, and was selected to serve on the Patients' Bill of Rights conference committee in 2000.

For six years Sen. Talent served on the House Education and Workforce Committee. He was a consistent advocate of safe schools and empowering parents and teachers through greater local control. In 2000, Sen. Talent passed legislation to allow public school authorities to remove from the classroom students who possessed or used illegal drugs or committed aggravated assault in school. He also led the fight on the House floor for opportunity scholarships - legislation which would have given poor students and their parents the chance to escape failing schools in the urban core.

Sen. Talent believes that the American dream is real for everyone, and he has worked to keep the commitment made to veterans for their service to America. Sen. Talent introduced legislation that now offers small business loans to more than half a million Missouri veterans and 24 million veterans nationwide. He championed the Missing Service Persons Act that expanded the legal rights of the families of POWs and the missing in action, so that the Department of Defense must on a regular basis reexamine each individual case.

Sen. Talent joined with former Rep. J.C. Watts (R-Okla.), former Rep. Floyd Flake (D-N.Y.), and Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.) to design the most comprehensive anti-poverty initiatives ever considered by Congress. The Community Renewal Act was crafted to empower local neighborhood groups, pastors and community leaders by providing the tools they need to create good jobs, decent housing, new businesses and safe neighborhoods. After five years of hard work, the legislation was signed into law by President Bill Clinton who lauded Sen. Talent for his bipartisan efforts to reduce poverty in America.

Sen. Talent led the effort to allow our producers to add value to their commodities through innovative agriculture enterprises. He fought for agriculture assistance centers and tax incentives that would aid our producers, help bolster the economy and create jobs in rural America.

Sen. Talent has been a leader in the fight for important transportation and infrastructure projects in Missouri and he has succeeded in raising the visibility of the road issue as a safety issue. He spearheaded efforts to secure the construction of four Missouri levees and to improve Mississippi River infrastructure in the state's Second Congressional District.

Awards During his service in Congress, Senator Talent has received numerous awards and honors. Talent is the first male recipient of the National Association of Women Business Owners' "National Public Policy" award. In addition, Sen. Talent was named "Legislator of the Year" by the Department of Missouri Veterans of Foreign Wars, the International Franchise Association and the Independent Electrical Contractors and he's been honored by the Seniors Coalition, the United Seniors Association and the Coalition to Save Medicare. In 2000, Sen. Talent received the Vietnam Veterans of America's Lifetime Achievement Award," and he has been named a "Taxpayer Hero" by the Americans for Tax Reform, "Guardian of Senior's Rights" by the 60 Plus Association and the "Friend of the Farmer" by the Missouri Farm Bureau.

The Missouri House

In 1984, at the age of 28, Senator Talent was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives, where he served for eight years and succeeded in passing numerous pieces of legislation, including legislative efforts to build roads, toughen drug laws, secure taxpayer rights and reduce taxes. At the age of 32, Senator Talent was unanimously chosen by his colleagues as the Minority leader, the highest ranking Republican leadership position in the Missouri House. He served in that capacity until 1992 when he was elected to Congress from Missouri's Second District.


Personal Information

Sen. Jim Talent was born and raised in Des Peres, Missouri. He graduated from Kirkwood High School in 1973 and attended Washington University in St. Louis, where he received the Arnold J. Lien Prize as the most outstanding undergraduate in political science. He graduated  Order of the Coif from the University of Chicago Law School in 1981 and clerked for Judge Richard Posner of the United States Court of Appeals from 1982 through 1983.

Jim and his wife, Brenda, were married in 1984. Jim and Brenda have three children: Michael, Kate, and Chrissy. The family lives in Chesterfield, Missouri.