Jim DeMint | |
---|---|
President of the Heritage Foundation | |
In office April 4, 2013 –May 2, 2017 | |
Preceded by | Edwin Feulner |
Succeeded by | Edwin Feulner |
United States Senator from South Carolina | |
In office January 3,2005 –January 2,2013 | |
Preceded by | Fritz Hollings |
Succeeded by | Tim Scott |
Member of the U.S.HouseofRepresentatives from South Carolina's 4th district | |
In office January 3,1999 –January 3,2005 | |
Preceded by | Bob Inglis |
Succeeded by | Bob Inglis |
Personal details | |
Born | James Warren DeMint September 2,1951 Greenville,South Carolina,U.S. |
Political party | Republican |
Spouse | Debbie Henderson (m. 1973) |
Children | 4 |
Education | University of Tennessee (BA) Clemson University (MBA) |
James Warren DeMint (born September 2, 1951) is an American businessman, author, and retired politician who served as a United States Senator from South Carolina and as president of The Heritage Foundation. A leading figure in the Tea Party movement, DeMint is a member of the Republican Party and is the founder of the Senate Conservatives Fund.
DeMint served as the United States representative for South Carolina's 4th congressional district from 1999 to 2005. He was elected to the U.S. Senate from South Carolina in 2004 and reelected in 2010. DeMint served in the Senate until January 2, 2013, when he stepped down to become president of The Heritage Foundation. On May 2, 2017, DeMint resigned his position at Heritage at the request of its board. He later became a senior advisor to Citizens for Self-Governance and the founding chairman of the Conservative Partnership Institute.
DeMint was born in Greenville, South Carolina, one of four children. His parents, Betty W. (née Rawlings) and Thomas Eugene DeMint, [1] divorced when he was five years old. Following the divorce, Betty DeMint operated a dance studio out of the family's home. [2] [ verification needed ] [3]
DeMint attended Christ Church Episcopal School and Wade Hampton High School.[ citation needed ] He played drums for a cover band called Salt & Pepper. [4] He received a bachelor's degree in 1973 from the University of Tennessee, [5] where he was a part of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, and received an MBA in 1981 from Clemson University. [5]
DeMint joined his father-in-law's advertising firm in Greenville in 1981, working in the field of market research. [5] [6] In 1983, he founded The DeMint Group, a research firm with businesses, schools, colleges, and hospitals as clients. [6]
DeMint's first involvement in politics began in 1992, when he was hired by Republican Representative Bob Inglis to work on his campaign for South Carolina's Fourth Congressional District. Inglis defeated three-term incumbent Democrat Liz J. Patterson, and DeMint performed message-testing and marketing for Inglis through two more successful elections. [7]
In 1998, Inglis ran for the U.S. Senate instead of seeking re-election to the House of Representatives. DeMint left his firm to run for Inglis' House seat. [5] [7] The district was considered the most Republican in the state, and it was understood that whoever won the primary would be heavily favored to be the district's next congressman.[ citation needed ] DeMint finished second in the Republican primary behind State Senator and fellow Greenville resident Michael Fair. [8] In the runoff, DeMint narrowly defeated Fair by 2,030 votes. [9] He then defeated Democratic State Senator Glenn Reese with 57 percent of the vote to Reese's 40 percent. [10] DeMint faced no major-party opposition in 2000, and defeated an underfunded Democrat in 2002.[ citation needed ]
DeMint was elected president of the freshman class of House Republicans. [11] [12] DeMint pledged to serve only three terms in the House. [6]
The Washington Post and The Christian Post have described DeMint as a "staunch conservative", based on his actions during his time in the House. [13] [14] He broke rank with his party and powerful state interests several times: DeMint was one of 34 Republicans to oppose President Bush's No Child Left Behind program and one of 25 to oppose Medicare Part D. [11] He sought to replace No Child Left Behind with a state-based block-grant program for schools. [6] DeMint also worked to privatize Social Security by allowing the creation of individual investment accounts in the federal program. In 2003, DeMint sponsored legislation to allow people under the age of 55 to set aside 3 percent to 8 percent of their Social Security withholding income in personal investment accounts. [6] DeMint was also the only South Carolina House member to vote for normalizing trade relations with China, arguing in favor of free trade between the countries. He also provided a crucial swing vote on a free trade bill regarding Caribbean countries. His votes led South Carolina's influential textile industry to heavily oppose him in his subsequent House and Senate races. [15] [16]
DeMint declared his candidacy for the Senate on December 12, 2002, after Sen. Ernest Hollings announced that he would retire after the 2004 elections.[ citation needed ] DeMint was the White House's preferred candidate in the Republican primary.[ citation needed ]
In the Republican primary on June 8, 2004, DeMint placed a distant second, 10.3% behind former governor David Beasley and just barely ahead of Thomas Ravenel. Ravenel endorsed DeMint in the following runoff. DeMint won the runoff handily, however.[ citation needed ]
DeMint then faced Democratic state education superintendent Inez Tenenbaum in the November general election. DeMint led Tenenbaum through much of the campaign and ultimately defeated her [17] by 9.6 percentage points.[ citation needed ] DeMint's win meant that South Carolina was represented by two Republican senators for the first time since Reconstruction, when Thomas J. Robertson and John J. Patterson served together as senators.[ citation needed ]
DeMint stirred controversy during debates with Tenenbaum when he stated his belief that openly gay people should not be allowed to teach in public schools. When questioned by reporters, DeMint also stated that single mothers who live with their boyfriends should similarly be excluded from being educators. [18] [19] He later apologized for making the remarks, saying they were "distracting from the main issues of the debate." He also noted that these were opinions based on his personal values, not issues he would or could deal with as a member of Congress. [20]
DeMint easily won re-nomination in the Republican Party primary. [21] Democratic Party opponent Alvin Greene won an upset primary victory over Vic Rawl. [22] [23] [24] [25] Greene received scrutiny from Democratic Party officials, with some calling for Greene to withdraw his candidacy or be replaced on the ballot. [26] On November 2, 2010, DeMint defeated Greene by a margin of 63% to 28%, with Green Party candidate Tom Clements receiving 9% of the vote. [27]
In his first term, DeMint was appointed to the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, the Environment and Public Works Committee, the Joint Economic Committee, and the Special Committee on Aging. [28] In 2006, DeMint began leading the Senate Steering Committee. [29] DeMint also served as a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations and the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. [30] [31]
As a member of the 111th United States Congress, DeMint joined the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. [32] In 2009, DeMint was one of two senators who voted against Hillary Clinton's appointment to Secretary of State, and the next year he introduced legislation to completely repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as Obamacare. [33] [34] Later in 2010, he introduced another piece of legislation titled the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny, which aimed to require congressional approval of any major regulation change made by a federal agency. [35] At the end of his first term, DeMint was appointed to the Senate Impeachment Trial Committee for the impeachment of federal judge Thomas Porteous. [36]
After being re-elected in 2010, DeMint became the highest-ranking elected official associated with the Tea Party. [37] [38] [39] [40] During the first year of his second term, DeMint released a letter signed by over 30 other Senate Republicans asking the supercommittee tasked with balancing the federal budget to do so within the next 10 years, and without creating any net tax increases. [41]
In 2012, DeMint announced his resignation from the Senate effective January 2, 2013, to take a job as president of The Heritage Foundation. [42] On December 17, 2012, South Carolina governor Nikki Haley announced that she would name Congressman Tim Scott to fill DeMint's vacated seat. [43]
DeMint is a member of the Republican Party [44] and is aligned with the Tea Party movement. [45] In 2011, DeMint was identified by Salon as one of the most conservative members of the Senate. [44] [45] [46]
Throughout his political career, DeMint has favored a type of tax reform that would replace the federal income tax with a national sales tax and, in addition, abolish the Internal Revenue Service. [47] He has supported many changes to federal spending, such as prioritizing a balanced budget amendment instead of increasing the national debt limit. [48] As a senator, DeMint proposed a two-year earmark ban to prevent members of Congress from spending federal money on projects in their home states. [49] In 2008, presidential candidates John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama co-sponsored DeMint's earmark reform proposal, although it ultimately failed to pass in the Senate. [50] In March 2010, DeMint's earmark reform plans were again defeated. [51] In November of the same year, DeMint, along with nine other senators including Rand Paul and Marco Rubio, proposed another moratorium on earmarks which was adopted by Senate Republicans. [52] [53]
DeMint has also been a proponent of free trade agreements, advocated for the privatization of Social Security benefits, and in 2009 authored the "Health Care Freedom Plan", which proposed giving tax credits to those who are unable to afford health insurance. [47] [54] [55] DeMint opposed President Barack Obama's health care reform efforts, saying of the Affordable Care Act, "If we're able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him." [56]
DeMint was the sole 'Nay' vote for the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008. [57]
DeMint was opposed to the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 and the bailouts during the automotive industry crisis of 2008–2010. He also led a group of senators in opposing government loans to corporations. [58] [59] He supports a high level of government accountability through the auditing of federal agencies. [58]
In 1999, DeMint voted against the NATO intervention during the Kosovo war. [58] DeMint voted to authorize military force in Iraq in 2002. [58] In 2011, DeMint voted in favor of Rand Paul's resolution opposing military involvement in Libya. [45] [58] He favored preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons over a policy of containment after their development. [60] [ better source needed ]
DeMint has also expressed concern about various United Nations treaties, such as the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Law of the Sea Treaty. [61] [62] DeMint favors legal immigration and opposes granting amnesty to illegal immigrants. [63] He has expressed opposition to the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013 on the basis that granting amnesty to illegal immigrants may cost American taxpayers trillions of dollars. [64] [65] [66]
In a May 15, 2020, editorial in Newsweek , DeMint stated that while he continued to support free trade, he was wrong about liberalizing trade with China. [67]
In October 2009, after the Honduran Army, on orders from the Honduran Supreme Court, removed Manuel Zelaya as president, DeMint visited the country to gather information. [68] The trip was approved by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell but opposed by Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry. DeMint supported the new government, while the Obama administration favored Zelaya's return to the presidency. [68]
In late 2009, DeMint criticized Barack Obama for waiting eight months into his first term as president before nominating a new head of the Transportation Security Administration. [69] After the attempted bombing of Northwest Flight 253 in December 2009, DeMint stated that President Obama had not put enough focus on terrorism while in office. [69]
DeMint blamed Obama for racism in the United States. He said that Obama "took race back to the '60s, as far as I'm concerned. He made everything a race issue, or at least saw it through a racial lens. The country had moved toward bending over backward to create equality. But then suddenly, with Obama, he just lit the fires. I thought when he was elected that was the big victory, that we had put racism behind us." [70]
DeMint opposes abortion except when the woman's life is in danger [71] [ better source needed ] and opposing research from stem cells derived from human embryos. [72] [73]
DeMint voted against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, in December 2009, [74] and he voted against the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010. [75]
He voted in favor of declaring English the official language of the US government. [63]
DeMint is firmly opposed to same-sex marriage. In his book Now or Never: Saving America from Economic Collapse, DeMint states:
Does government have the right to reshape cultural mores by redefining religious institutions to sanction behavior that is considered immoral by all the world's religions? In America, people should have a right to live with whomever they want, but redefining marriage to promote behavior that is deemed costly and destructive is not the proper role of government. [76]
DeMint also argues that same-sex marriage infringes upon religious liberty:
We just cannot have, particularly the federal government, redefining marriage or telling us what is right or wrong. And if we help America understand that, folks, we're not trying to get the government to do it our way or your way; what we're asking for is the freedom to allow people to live out their faith and values and their lives the way they want. And we believe that our side will win because I'm convinced that most Americans want to have decent moral lives and share our same values. But if the government continues to press in the wrong direction, it begins to change our culture. [77]
DeMint has repeatedly voted for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. [78] He has also voted to ban same-sex adoption in Washington, D.C. [78] DeMint drew considerable criticism by saying that openly gay teachers should be banned from teaching in public schools. [79]
In a 2008 interview, DeMint said that while government does not have the right to restrict homosexuality, it also should not encourage it through legalizing same-sex marriage, due to the "costly secondhand consequences" to society from the prevalence of certain diseases among homosexuals. [80] On October 1, 2010, DeMint, in comments that echoed what he had said in 2004, told a rally of his supporters that openly homosexual and unmarried sexually active people should not be teachers. [81] In response, the National Organization for Women, the National Education Association, the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign, GOProud (a GOP group), and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force asked for DeMint's apology. [18] [82]
In 2008, DeMint formed the Senate Conservatives Fund (SCF), a political action committee with the intention of supporting conservative candidates that may have otherwise been overlooked by the national party. [83] The SCF is associated with the Tea Party movement. [84] [85] It supports conservative Republican politicians in primary challenges and general elections. [49] [86] SCF states that it raised $9.1 million toward the 2010 U.S. Senate elections and which endorsed successful first-time Senate candidates Pat Toomey, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Ron Johnson, Marco Rubio. [87] [ better source needed ] DeMint left SCF in 2012. [88]
On April 4, 2013, DeMint started his first full day as president of The Heritage Foundation. [89] The Washington Post reported that DeMint's predecessor at the Heritage Foundation, Edwin Feulner, was paid a base salary of $477,097 in 2010 compared to a U.S. Senator's salary of $174,000 and that year DeMint was one of the poorest members of the Senate, with an estimated wealth of $40,501. [90]
On May 2, 2017, DeMint was fired from The Heritage Foundation following a unanimous vote of the foundation's board of trustees, [91] [92] [93] which had lost confidence in his ability to maintain the organization's role as a fount of conservative thinking. [94] A public statement by the board said a thorough investigation of the foundation's operations under DeMint found "significant and worsening management issues that led to a breakdown of internal communications and cooperation." "While the organization has seen many successes," the board statement said, "Jim DeMint and a handful of his closest advisers failed to resolve these problems." [95]
In June 2017, DeMint became a senior advisor to Citizens for Self-Governance, a group which is seeking to call a convention to propose amendments to the United States Constitution in order to reduce federal government spending and power. According to DeMint, "The Tea Party needs a new mission. They realize that all the work they did in 2010 has not resulted in all the things they hoped for. Many of them are turning to Article V." The proposed constitutional convention would impose fiscal restraint on Washington D.C., reduce the federal government's authority over states, and impose term limits on federal officials. [96]
In 2017, DeMint founded the Conservative Partnership Institute, of which he serves as chairman. [97] [98] The stated purpose of the CPI is the professional development of conservative staffers and elected officials. [97] Mark Meadows joined as senior partner in January 2021. [99] The Save America PAC donated $1 million to the CPI. [100] A 2022 NPR investigation found CPI might be violating prohibitions on 501(c)(3) charities providing benefits to political parties (in this case, the Republican Party). [101]
As part of the attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election, DeMint signed a December 10, 2020, letter from the Conservative Action Project asking state legislatures in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Michigan to disregard the popular vote outcomes in each of those states and appoint slates of electors to the Electoral College in support of President Donald Trump. [102]
DeMint's wife, Debbie, is one of three children of the late Greenville advertising entrepreneur and South Carolina Republican figure James Marvin Henderson Sr. [103]
Judd Alan Gregg is an American politician and attorney who served as the 76th governor of New Hampshire from 1989 to 1993 and a United States senator from New Hampshire from 1993 to 2011 where he was Chairman of the Health Committee and the Budget Committee. A member of the Republican Party, he was a businessman and attorney in Nashua before entering politics. Gregg currently serves as the Chair of the Public Advisory Board at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College.
Richard Craig Shelby is an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Alabama from 1987 to 2023. First elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986 as a Democrat who later switched to the Republican Party in 1994, he chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee from 2018 to 2021. He previously chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Senate Banking Committee, and the Senate Rules Committee. He was the longest-serving U.S. senator from Alabama, surpassing John Sparkman's record in March 2019.
The 2004 United States Senate elections were held on November 2, 2004, with all Class 3 Senate seats being contested. They coincided with the re-election of George W. Bush as president and the United States House elections, as well as many state and local elections. Senators who were elected in 1998, known as Senate Class 3, were seeking re-election or retiring in 2004.
Jeffry Lane "Jeff" Flake is an American politician and diplomat who is the United States ambassador to Turkey. A member of the Republican Party, Flake served in the United States House of Representatives from 2001 to 2013 and in the United States Senate from 2013 to 2019, representing Arizona. He was nominated by Democratic president Joe Biden and confirmed by the Senate for his ambassador post on October 26, 2021. He presented his credentials to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the Presidential Complex of Turkey in Ankara on January 26, 2022.
Roger Frederick Wicker is an American attorney and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Mississippi, a seat he has held since 2007. A member of the Republican Party, Wicker was a Mississippi State Senator from 1988 to 1995 and the U.S. Representative from Mississippi's 1st congressional district from 1995 until 2007.
The 2010 United States Senate elections were held on November 2, 2010, from among the United States Senate's 100 seats. A special election was held on January 19, 2010, for a mid-term vacancy in Massachusetts. 34 of the November elections were for 6-year terms to the Senate's Class 3, while other 3 were special elections to finish incomplete terms. Those 37 November elections featured 19 incumbent Democrats and 18 incumbent Republicans.
Randal Howard Paul is an American politician serving as the junior United States senator from Kentucky since 2011. A member of the Republican Party, he has described himself as a constitutional conservative and a supporter of the Tea Party movement. His libertarian views have been compared to those of his father, three-time presidential candidate and 12-term U.S. representative from Texas, Ron Paul.
The 2004 United States Senate election in South Carolina was held on November 2, 2004. Longtime incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Fritz Hollings retired, and Republican U.S. Representative Jim DeMint won the open seat. DeMint was the first Republican to hold this Senate seat since 1879. This marked the first time since 1877 that Republicans held both Senate seats in South Carolina simultaneously.
The 2010 United States Senate election in South Carolina was held on November 2, 2010. Incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Jim DeMint won re-election to a second term, defeating Democratic nominee Alvin Greene. However, DeMint did not serve out the full term to which he was elected; he resigned in 2013 to become president of The Heritage Foundation.
The 2010 United States Senate election in Kansas took place on November 2, 2010, alongside other elections to the United States Senate in other states as well as elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections. Incumbent Senator Sam Brownback did not seek a third full term, but instead successfully ran for Governor of Kansas.
The 2014 United States Senate elections were held on November 4, 2014. A total of 36 seats in the 100-member U.S. Senate were contested. 33 Class 2 seats were contested for regular 6-year terms to be served from January 3, 2015, to January 3, 2021, and 3 Class 3 seats were contested in special elections due to Senate vacancies. The elections marked 100 years of direct elections of U.S. senators. Going into the elections, 21 of the contested seats were held by the Democratic Party, while 15 were held by the Republican Party.
Timothy Eugene Scott is an American businessman and politician serving as the junior United States senator from South Carolina since 2013. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a member of the Charleston County Council, a state representative, and a U.S. Representative. He also worked in financial services before entering politics.
The 2016 United States Senate election in South Carolina was held on November 8, 2016, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the State of South Carolina, concurrently with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, as well as other elections to the United States Senate in other states and elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections. Both major parties held their primaries on June 14.
The 2012 New York state elections took place on November 6, 2012. These elections included the 2012 presidential election, an election to one U.S. Senate seat, and elections to all 27 New York congressional seats, all 63 seats in the New York State Senate, and all 150 seats in the New York State Assembly.
The 2014 United States Senate election in South Carolina took place on November 4, 2014, concurrently with a special election for South Carolina's other Senate seat, as well as other elections to the United States Senate in other states and elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections.
The 2014 United States Senate special election in South Carolina took place on November 4, 2014, concurrently with the regular election for the other South Carolina Senate seat. The special-election Senate seat was formerly held by Republican Jim DeMint, who resigned on January 2, 2013, to become president of The Heritage Foundation.
The Tea Party movement, founded in 2009, is an American political movement that advocates strict adherence to the United States Constitution, reducing U.S. government spending and taxes, and reduction of the U.S. national debt and federal budget deficit.
The Senate Conservatives Fund (SCF) is a United States political action committee (PAC) that supports conservative Republican Party candidates in primaries and general elections. The SCF primarily focuses on supporting United States Senate candidates. The PAC was founded by then-U.S. Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina in 2008.
The 2016 United States Senate election in Utah took place on November 8, 2016, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the State of Utah, concurrently with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, as well as other elections to the United States Senate in other states and elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections.
National conservative leaders, such as Tea Party leader South Carolina U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, ...
... Tea Party figures such as Jim DeMint, ...
The fair is being hosted by the Conservative Partnership Institute, an organization founded by former Heritage Foundation president Jim DeMint last year.