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About the Committee
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The Committee Chairman
Chairman Leahy
Patrick J. Leahy,
Vermont

Previous Chairmen

Patrick J. Leahy of Middlesex, Vermont, was elected to the United States Senate in 1974, making him Vermont's longest-serving Senator.  Leahy is the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, a position he has held since January 2007.  He also served as Chairman from June 2001 through January 2003.

A graduate of Saint Michael's College in Colchester, Vermont (1961), he received his Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center (1964).  He served for eight years as State's Attorney in Chittenden County, Vermont.  He gained a national reputation for his law enforcement activities and was selected (1974) as one of three outstanding prosecutors in the United States.  Leahy is also a senior member of the Agriculture and Appropriations Committees, and serves as the Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations.  In July 2012, Leahy - the second-most senior member of the Senate - became just the sixth U.S. Senator to cast more than 14,000 votes.

Throughout his tenure as a member and as a Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Leahy is a major force in the myriad issues the committee handles.  A former prosecutor, he has championed those serving in law enforcement, first responders, and the victims of crime.  Leahy helped to establish the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Program in 1999 and has led reauthorization of this important program which has provided more than a million protective vests since its creation. Chairman Leahy is the author of the bipartisan Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2011 and the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act.  In 2009, Congress passed the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act, Leahy's bipartisan bill with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the committee's ranking member, to strengthen tool and increase resources available to federal prosecutors to combat fraud. A staunch advocate for the public's right to know, Leahy has continued his efforts to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by introducing and guiding to passage the OPEN FOIA Act and authoring the Faster FOIA Act.  Leahy also championed the OPEN Government Act, which imposes real consequences on Federal agencies for missing the 20-day statutory deadline for FOIA requests.

Leahy is a longtime protector of civil rights and civil liberties.  As Chairman, in 2009 he led the effort to pass the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act to broaden federal hate crimes law so that those targeted because of their gender, sexual-orientation, gender identity or disability would be protected.  In 2011, Leahy chaired the first-ever congressional hearing on proposals to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), setting the stage for the Committee to later approve legislation to repeal the law.  He has also authored the Uniting American Families Act so that Americans can sponsor their permanent partners in immigration proceedings and he has led the effort to renew the immigration program known as EB-5 to bring much-needed jobs to local communities.  Leahy has authored and advocated legislation to restore the right to habeas corpus for all Americans, a right that was stripped in the 2006 Military Commissions Act.  Leahy created the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, now encompassed in the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights, and has established the Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law.

Leahy has also been a leading voice in protecting the nation's intellectual property and promoting innovation.  He coauthored the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, which was signed into law in 2011 after six years of bipartisan work to enact the first significant reforms to the nation's patent system in nearly 60 years.  Chairman Leahy authored the PRO-IP Act, which was enacted in 2008, to strengthen tools used to prosecute the theft of American's intellectual property, and he is a strong proponent of open Internet rules designed to prevent discrimination against lawful Internet content and promote competition in the online marketplace.  He was a cosponsor of the Internet Freedom Preservation Act in 2006 and 2007, and voted to uphold the Federal Communications Commission open Internet rules in 2011.

Leahy has long fought for the protection of privacy rights and freedom of speech on the Internet.  He is the co-founder and co-chair of the Congressional Internet Caucus.  He has taken the lead on several privacy issues, including Internet and medical records privacy. Leahy held Congress's first hearing in 1994 on privacy concerns relating to electronic medical records.

Leahy is the chief sponsor of the Innocence Protection Act, which addresses flaws in the administration of capital punishment, and the Second Chance Act, which was signed into law in 2007 and helps state and local authorities successfully reintegrate prisoners into their communities and reduce the rate of repeat offenders.  Parts of Leahy's death penalty reform package, which were enacted in 2004, will reduce the risks that innocent people are executed by providing for post-conviction DNA testing and better access to competent legal counsel.

As a senior member of the Senate, Leahy is one of few Senators to have voted on the confirmation of every sitting member of the current Supreme Court.  During his time as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Leahy has overseen the confirmation of hundreds of judicial and executive nominations.  He is a leading voice on the role that our independent judicial system plays in our democracy.

Patrick Leahy has been married to Marcelle Pomerleau Leahy since 1962.  They have a daughter, two sons, and five grandchildren.  The Leahys live on a tree farm in Middlesex, Vermont.

To read more about previous Chairmen of the Senate Judiciary Committee, click here.

noteworthy

Did You Know?  Harlan Fiske Stone was the first Supreme Court nominee to testify at a Supreme Court confirmation hearing in 1925.  John Harlan was only the fourth nominee to testify (1955).  Harlan's 1955 confirmation marked the beginning of the current practice of each Supreme Court nominee testifying before the Judiciary Committee.

Webcasts

12/06/2012 10:00 AM
Executive Business Meeting

11/29/2012 10:00 AM
Executive Business Meeting

09/20/2012 10:00 AM
Executive Business Meeting


Webcast Archive

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