Richard Shelby

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Richard Shelby (2011)

Richard Craig Shelby (born May 6, 1934 in Birmingham , Alabama ) is an American politician who has represented the state of Alabama in the US Senate since 1987 . He was elected a Democrat , but later joined the Republicans .

Shelby studied law at the University of Alabama , after which he worked as a prosecutor in Tuscaloosa from 1963 to 1978 . He began his political career in 1970 as a member of the Alabama Senate . He stayed there until 1978, when he was elected to the United States House of Representatives . He was re-elected three times there. In 1986 he ran for the Senate and prevailed against the Republican incumbent Jeremiah Denton . In 1992 he was re-elected, although Bill Clinton did not get a majority in Alabama in the presidential election, which was taking place at the same time ; during the following legislative term he joined the Republicans on November 9, 1994, after the mid-term elections in the United States in 1994 called the Republican Revolution. In the elections of 1998 and 2004 it was confirmed with a clear majority; Also in 2010 he won with 65.3 percent of the vote against the Democrat William G. Barnes. Since he was re-elected in 2016, he will represent his state in the US Senate for the next six years. His new term runs until January 3, 2023.

In the Senate he sits or sat, among other things, on the influential Approval Committee and the Banking Committee . From 1997 to 2001 he headed the Senate Committee to Control the Intelligence Services . Since January 2015 - after the Republicans won a majority in the US Senate in the 2014 election - he has been chairman of the banking committee.

As one of only four Republican senators, he approved the appointment of his fellow party member Chuck Hagel as the new US Secretary of Defense in February 2013 .

Richard Shelby lives in Tuscaloosa with his wife Annette Nevin Shelby. They have two sons together, Richard Jr. and Claude.

Web links

Commons : Richard Shelby  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jesse Chambers: Alabama Senator Richard Shelby named chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. In: AL.com , January 8, 2015 (English).
  2. US Senate Roll Call Vote: Confirmation Charles Timothy Hagel, of Nebraska, to be Secretary of Defense (February 26, 2013)