Republicans gained 60 seats in the House in the Nov 2 election. Here's a bio of Richard Shelby from Wikipedia:
Richard Craig Shelby (born May 6, 1934) is the senior U.S. Senator from Alabama. Originally elected to the Senate as a Democrat, Shelby switched to the Republican Party in 1994 when it gained the majority in Congress.
Early lifeShelby was born in Birmingham, Alabama, the son of Alice L. (née Skinner) and Ozie Houston Shelby. He attended the University of Alabama, receiving an undergraduate degree in 1957 and a Juris Doctor in 1963.
Shelby is a member of the American Bar Association and Alabama State Bar, as well as the American Judicature Society, Alabama Law Institute, Delta Chi Fraternity, and Phi Alpha Delta legal fraternity.
Shelby currently lives in Tuscaloosa with his wife, Annette Nevin Shelby. They have two sons, Richard Jr., and Claude Nevin.
Early career
Shelby was a city prosecutor in Tuscaloosa, Alabama from 1963 to 1971. From 1966 to 1970, he was a U.S. Magistrate for the Northern District of Alabama; from 1969 to 1971, Shelby was a Special Assistant State Attorney General.
Shelby began his legislative career as a member of the Alabama Senate in 1970, serving until 1978, when he was elected to the House of Representatives from the Tuscaloosa-based 7th District. He was reelected three times. He was one of the more conservative Democrats in Congress, and a member of the boll weevils, a group of moderate to conservative leaning Democrats who often worked with Republican President Ronald Reagan on defense issues.
U.S. Senate
Elections
In 1986, Shelby won the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat held by Republican Jeremiah Denton, the first Republican elected to the Senate from Alabama since Reconstruction. He won a very close race as the Democrats regained control of the Senate. He was easily re-elected in 1992 even as Bill Clinton lost Alabama's electoral votes.
On November 9, 1994, Shelby switched his party affiliation to Republican, one day after the Republicans won control of both houses in the midterm elections, giving the Republicans a 53-47 majority in the Senate. He won his first full term as a Republican in 1998 by a large margin, and faced no significant opposition in 2004 and 2010.
Shelby remains popular in Alabama. A September 2009 poll showed he had a 58% approval rating, with 35% disapproving.
Tenure
1980s
In 1987, Shelby opposed Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court; a move attributed to lobbying by Alabama African-American leaders who reminded Shelby that he had relied on support from African-American voters in defeating Denton in 1986.
1990s
Shelby publicly feuded with Bill Clinton during the first half of Clinton's first term. At a meeting with Vice President Al Gore, he turned to 19 Alabama TV cameras and denounced the Clinton program as "high on taxes, low on spending cuts".
Shelby served on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence from 1995 to 2003, stepping down because of a Senate rule limiting committee terms to eight years. Shelby took an adversarial stance towards the intelligence community during both Clinton and Bush administrations. He helped sink Anthony Lake's nomination as CIA director in 1997 and promised to investigate the use of American-made satellites by the Chinese to gather intelligence.
Senator Shelby has supported several gun control measures put forth by Democrats including the 1991 Crime Bill S.1241 sponsored by then senator Joseph Biden that instituted a national waiting period for handgun purchases as well as a federal ban on semi-automatic firearms.
In 1998, Shelby voted for Barbara Boxer's Trigger Lock Amendment 3230, requiring the purchase of a trigger lock with the sale of each handgun. Firearms dealers who do not comply are guilty of a federal crime and face revocation of their Federal Firearms License and civil fines up to $10,000 for each omission.
2000s
Shelby was also highly critical of CIA Director George Tenet in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. When Tenet resigned in July 2004, Shelby commented "This is not a surprise to me at all. What was a surprise was that he held onto the job as long as he did".
From 2003 until 2007, he chaired the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. He is also a member of the Appropriations Committee (where he chaired its subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science) and Special Committee on Aging. He lost his chairmanships in 2007 when the Democrats regained control of the Senate.
In 2004, a federal investigation concluded that Shelby revealed classified information to the media when he was a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Specifically, Shelby revealed classified information on June 19, 2002 to Carl Cameron, the chief political correspondent on Fox News. The information consisted of two messages intercepted by the National Security Agency on September 10, 2001, but were only translated the day after the attacks — "the match is about to begin" and "tomorrow is zero hour." The Department of Justice declined to file criminal charges against Shelby and transferred the case to the Senate Ethics Committee, which dismissed its probe into the alleged leak.
Shelby, in his role as chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, & Urban Affairs, opposed proposed legislation that would have permitted additional competition in the title insurance industry.
Shelby is currently co-chair of the Congressional Privacy Caucus and Zero Capital Gains Tax Caucus. He is also the Senate co-chair of the National Security Caucus. In addition, he is a member of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Senate Centrist Coalition.
In the Metroplex of Dallas–Fort Worth, Shelby is known for the Shelby Amendment, a law he sponsored that eased some of the restrictions placed on Dallas' secondary airport by the contentious Wright Amendment.
On February 5, 2010, Shelby placed a hold on over 70 of Obama's nominees to various government posts, in a protest over an Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker contract and the FBI's Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center. Shelby lifted all but three of the holds on February 8, 2010, releasing a statement that "The purpose of placing numerous holds was to get the White House’s attention on two issues that are critical to our national security – the Air Force’s aerial refueling tanker acquisition and the FBI’s Terrorist Device Analytical Center (TEDAC). With that accomplished, Sen. Shelby has decided to release his holds on all but a few nominees directly related to the Air Force tanker acquisition until the new Request for Proposal is issued."
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs criticized Shelby for "hold[ing] up qualified nominees for positions that are needed because he didn't get two earmarks"; Shelby denied the holds were over earmarks.
Political views
Shelby took a leading role in the resistance to bailing out the banks and other corporations (such as AIG), both under the Bush Administration, in 2008, and the Obama Administration, beginning in 2009.
Shelby says he opposes gun control, but Senator Shelby has supported several key gun control measures put forth by Democrats including the 1991 Crime Bill S.1241 sponsored by then senator Joseph Biden that instituted a national waiting period for handgun purchases as well as a federal ban on semi-automatic firearms.
In 1998, Shelby voted for Barbara Boxer's Trigger Lock Amendment 3230, a law requiring the purchase of a trigger lock with the sale of each handgun. Firearms dealers who do not comply with the law are guilty of a federal crime and face revocation of their Federal Firearms License and civil fines up to $10,000 for each omission.
He is against abortion, and supports the Federal Marriage Amendment. He has also been a staunch advocate of a flat tax and of the Bush Administration's tax cuts. He cites disagreements with the Democrats on tax policy as one of the main reasons he became a Republican; he feels the Democrats are too willing to enact tax increases. Among the bills sponsored by Shelby over the years have been bills to make English the sole language of the federal government, to limit federal government spending by statute, and to provide a moratorium on certain forms of immigration.
Shelby is considered to be much more independent-minded than his Senate colleague from Alabama, Jeff Sessions. For instance, shortly after becoming a Republican he voted against two major tort reform bills, the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act and the Common Sense Product Liability and Legal Reform Act. Both bills were vetoed by President Clinton, though the first bill was successfully passed over his veto. In 1999 he was the only Senate Republican to vote against the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. Shelby also voted against the North American Free Trade Agreement and opposes most free trade agreements, most recently the Central America Free Trade Agreement. When he was a Democrat, Shelby opposed the confirmation of Robert Bork to the United States Supreme Court in 1987. He supported the confirmation of John Roberts and Samuel Alito almost two decades later.
In 1999, Shelby was one of ten Republican senators to vote for the acquittal of President Bill Clinton on the charge of perjury when Clinton was tried in the Senate in 1999, although he voted for Clinton's conviction on the charge of obstruction of justice.
Shelby opposed the initial bailout proposal to extend billions of dollars in loan money to the Big Three US Auto Manufacturers. He is often seen as a front man for the GOP Senate opposition. In late 2008, he opposed a Federal government bridge loan for US-owned auto companies, saying: "We don't need government - governmental subsidies for manufacturing in this country. It's the French model, it's the wrong road. We will pay for it. The average American taxpayer is going to pay dearly for this, if I'm not wrong."
Sen. Richard Shelby voted to block three amendments to regulate banks, including an amendment #3812 to S. 3217,to cap ATM fees at $0.50 per transaction, and also to bar banks who borrowed tax payer money through TARP funds to use those funds for their own benefit.[16] Sen. Shelby also believes that bank oversight violates the right to privacy and is against the Government Office of Financial Research being able to collect any financial data it needs to regulate the bank industry.
Committees
Senator Shelby as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban AffairsSenate Committee on Appropriations
Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science (Ranking Member)
Subcommittee on Defense
Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development
Subcommittee on Homeland Security
Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education & Related Agencies
Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies
Senate Committee on Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs (Ranking Member)
Senate Committee on Aging
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