Biography of Senator Christopher J. Dodd

Connecticut’s Chris Dodd is a senior Democratic leader in the United States Senate. A respected legislator who works in a bipartisan fashion to better peoples’ lives, Chris Dodd is best known for his work to make America safer, stronger, and more prosperous.

Senator Dodd is perhaps best known for bringing much-needed attention to children’s issues. He formed the first children’s caucus in the Senate and spent almost a decade fighting to enact the Family and Medical Leave Act, which has helped ensure that over 30 millions Americans don’t have to choose between the job they need and the family they love. He also authored and enacted landmark legislation to ensure that our nation provides better access to safe and affordable child care.

A common-sense leader who has long fought to put our nation’s fiscal house in order, streamline the federal government, and offer targeted tax relief for working families, Dodd offered the first "pay as you go" budget in 1983 and played an important role in the 1990’s to restore the fiscal discipline that for the first time since World War II led to record budget surpluses. He also has long fought to reform our campaign finance laws and successfully authored and enacted legislation banning members of Congress from receiving speaking fees.

Chris Dodd has a reputation for independence, vision, and effectiveness. Even before the tragic events of September 11, 2001, Dodd saw a need to help local committees better prepare for man-made and natural disasters. Working with Senators on both sides of the political aisle, he successfully authored the first federal law to help towns and cities hire, equip, and train firefighters and other emergency responders. This legislation has helped communities throughout America better protect their citizens from the risks of terrorism, fires, floods, and other disasters.

After the controversial presidential election of 2000, Dodd’s leadership skills were again on display. He authored legislation which contained a simple yet profound truth: that in America, every voter should have an equal opportunity to vote and have that vote counted. This legislation was enacted as the Help America Vote Act – which has been called the first civil rights law of the 21st century.

Chris Dodd has long believed that “the best social program is a good job.” To that end, he has dedicated himself to helping Americans create and win the best jobs in the 21st century global economy. He is a long-time supporter of job-training initiatives that enable American workers to acquire higher-skilled, better-paying jobs. He won approval of laws to protect start-up companies from frivolous lawsuits. He co-authored the landmark Sarbanes-Oxley law, which has strengthened accounting and managerial practices for the benefit of companies and workers who invest in those companies. He has worked to rein in runaway energy and health care costs that are placing unprecedented burdens on American businesses and employees. In addition, he is a long-time supporter of the Research and Development Tax Credit and of greater investments in scientific research to spur innovation and job creation. While helping American companies compete abroad, Senator Dodd also believes that we must do more to help our companies keep good jobs here at home. In his view, American policy should encourage the export of American goods and services – not American jobs.

Recognizing that the information age offers great challenges as well as opportunities, Dodd also has fought to protect people’s basic right to privacy, authoring legislation to protect individuals’ financial, medical and genetic records. He also wrote and successfully enacted a measure requiring Internet service providers to notify parents of how to obtain software to screen out web content unsuitable for children.

A strong advocate of better education for America’s children, Dodd has consistently fought to expand and improve Head Start, and ultimately was honored as a national Head Start "Senator of the Decade" for his efforts. He helped write the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, worked to create after-school initiatives designed to keep children out of trouble and on the road to success, and has helped author measures to make higher education more affordable for working families. He has introduced legislation to improve and reform the No Child Left Behind law. This law, which was signed into law in 2002 to help teachers and students raise achievement levels, has been greatly underfunded and inflexibly implemented.

As a senior member of the Senate committee responsible for health care, Chris Dodd has been a voice for innovation in patient care. He was instrumental in extending health insurance to 5 to 7 million of the nation’s uninsured children and has consistently fought to support community health centers and initiatives aimed at child nutrition, maternal and child health, and infant mortality prevention. He successfully led the effort to modernize the Food and Drug Administration approval process for drugs and medical devices, getting innovative therapies to patients more quickly without compromising safety and effectiveness. He authored critically important legislation to protect the mentally ill from abusive and deadly restraint and seclusion practices in mental hospitals. He continues to push for a patient’s bill of rights, which would give Americans basic assurances in their health care services and a greater right to choose their health care provider. And he is working to enact new legislation to ensure that the medicines taken by consumers are safe and effective.

A staunch friend of law enforcement, Dodd voted for passage of the landmark crime bill which put 100,000 new cops on the street across the country, including more than 1,000 in Connecticut. He supported the Brady Bill, which imposed a five-day waiting period on handgun purchases, and supported the ban on deadly assault weapons. He authored a bill requiring safety locks on guns and fought successfully to prevent anyone convicted of domestic violence from owning a gun. Currently, he is working for tough new laws to investigate, prosecute and punish criminals who prey upon children.

A recipient of the Edmund S. Muskie Distinguished Public Service Award recognizing leadership in foreign policy, Dodd’s record reflects his commitment to a strong national defense and his desire to build a more secure world. As a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he is a recognized expert on Latin and South America and has worked to foster peace, prosperity and democracy abroad. He helped lead the successful fight to save Submarine Base New London, where our nation’s most sophisticated undersea arsenal is developed and home-ported. He has taken steps to change Administration policies that currently allow the export and loss of critical defense technologies. And he has been a leader in the Senate to ensure that American soldiers have the best possible equipment on the battlefield.

Senator Dodd is currently a senior member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and is the senior Democrat on its Education and Early Childhood Development Subcommittee. He also is the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps, and Narcotics. He serves on the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, and is the senior Democrat on its Securities and Investment Subcommittee. He also is the senior Democrat on the Rules and Administration Committee.

Dodd’s commitment to public service and human rights was instilled at an early age by his parents, the late Senator Thomas J. Dodd and Grace Murphy Dodd. Thomas Dodd was one of the lead prosecutors during the Nuremberg war crimes tribunals before he was elected to the United States Senate. Chris Dodd is the first Connecticut son to follow his father into the Senate and the youngest person ever elected to the United States Senate in Connecticut history. He is also the first Connecticut Senator popularly elected to five terms.

Following his graduation from Providence College, Dodd, who is fluent in Spanish, spent two years in the Peace Corps working in a rural village in the Dominican Republic. Upon returning to the United States, Dodd enlisted in the Army and served in the reserves. In 1972, he earned a law degree from the University of Louisville School of Law. He practiced law in New London before his election to Congress in 1974, where he served three terms in the House of Representatives on behalf of Connecticut’s Second District.

Dodd was born May 27, 1944, in Willimantic, Connecticut, the fifth of six children. Senator Dodd lives in East Haddam with his wife, Jackie Clegg Dodd, and their daughters Grace and Christina.