Carl Levin

This article is about the politician Carl Levin. For other people, see Carl Lewin .

Carl Levin

Carl Levin (2014)

Carl Milton Levin (born June 28, 1934 in Detroit , Michigan , † July 29, 2021 there ) was an American politician of the Democratic Party . He was a member of the United States Senate for Michigan from 1979 to 2015 .

Family and education

Levin came from a Jewish family. His older brother Sandy sat in the US House of Representatives from 1983 to 2019 . His uncle Theodore Levin was a judge in Michigan Federal District Court , his cousin Charles Levin (1926-2020) a judge in the Michigan Supreme Court , and his other cousin Joseph Levin was a candidate for the House of Representatives.

Carl Levin attended public schools in Detroit and graduated from Swarthmore College in 1956 . He then attended Harvard Law School , which he graduated in 1959. Shortly afterwards he went into business for himself as a lawyer in Detroit.

Political career

Levin initially held various offices at the local and state levels. Among other things, he was Deputy Attorney General of Michigan and was a member of Detroit City Council from 1969 to 1977. In 1978 he entered Congress by beating the second-highest Republican in the Senate, Robert P. Griffin , in the election. He won his re-elections in 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, making him the longest-serving US Senator from Michigan in the history of the state.

As of 2007, Levin was chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee; from 1997 he was the highest-ranking democrat in this committee, that is, a minority leader or chairman, depending on the majority situation. Levin campaigned for the disclosure of classified documents, particularly concerning the alleged links between Iraq and Al Qaeda .

In March 2013, Levin announced that he would not run again in the 2014 election. He resigned from the Senate on January 3, 2015.

Positions and Awards

The American Conservative Union placed Levin's voting behavior on a scale of 0 (very left) to 100 (very conservative) at a 7, and the American Civil Liberties Union gave him a 78 percent approval rating for his votes on citizens' rights in 2005.

Levin was the initiator of the legislative initiative Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act against tax evasion . This provided for a list of countries that are generally considered to be suspicious, but which in some cases do not meet the OECD criteria for tax havens . He introduced the bill to the Senate on February 17, 2007 in conjunction with Senators Norm Coleman and Barack Obama . It failed, as did the successor bills of the same name that have been regularly reintroduced since then.

Levin received honorary doctorates from Michigan State University in 2004 and from Wayne State University in 2005 . In April 2006, Time magazine named him one of the top ten US senators.

Web links

Commons : Carl Levin  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Carl Levin in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

supporting documents

1. ↑ James Hohmann: Michigan Sen. Carl Levin to Retire. In: Politico , March 7, 2013.
2. ↑ Interview: Carl Levin. In: PBS Frontline , February 19, 2004.
3. ^ Tara Andringa: Levin, Coleman, Obama Introduce Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act (p. 681). In: Senate.gov , February 17, 2007. See also p. 681 (110th): Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act. And most recently in 2017: HR 1932: Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act. In: Govtrack.
4. ↑ David Burnett: Carl Levin: The Bird-Dogger. In: Time , April 14, 2006.