Charles Ellis "Chuck" Schumer (born November 23, 1950) is the senior Senator from the state of New York and a member of the Democratic Party.
Schumer was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. He served in the New York Assembly from 1974 to 1980. He represented New York's ninth Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1980 to 1998. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1998, when he defeated three-term incumbent Republican Al D'Amato. In 2004 he was re-elected with more than 70 percent of the vote.
Schumer currently serves on the following Congressional committees:
Schumer's propensity for publicity is the subject of a running joke amongst many commentators, leading Bob Dole to quip that "the most dangerous place in Washington is between Charles Schumer and a television camera."
Schumer has faced criticism from the National Rifle Association and other gun groups (see gun politics) for coauthoring the federal assault weapons ban in 1994 with California Senator Dianne Feinstein; these groups have criticized him for allegedly not knowing much about guns, pointing to various errors regarding the subject. He once referred to a magazine as a "stock " and Tec-9 is misspelled on his web site [1]. Supporters of gun control legislation, however, give him much of the credit for passage of both the assault weapons law and the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act despite intense lobbying from opponents.
In addition to gun control, Schumer has focused on banking and consumer issues, counter-terrorism, and debate over confirmation of federal judges, as well as economic development in New York.
In 2004, Schumer handily won re-election against Republican Assemblyman Howard Mills of Middletown and Conservative Marilyn O'Grady . Schumer outpolled Mills, the second-place finisher, by 2.8 million votes and won reelection with 71% of the vote, the highest ever for a Senator's election in New York.
Schumer is currently the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, part of the Democratic Senate Leadership, with primary responsibility for raising funds and recruiting candidates for the Democrats in the 2006 Senate election. When he took this post, he announced that he would not run for Governor of New York in 2006, as many had speculated he would. This step avoided a potentially divisive gubernatorial primary election in 2006 between Schumer and Eliot Spitzer, New York's attorney general. Schumer's daughter, Jessica, is a graduate of Stuyvesant High School.
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Last updated: 05-14-2005 06:58:37
