Joe - Joseph Isadore Lieberman

About

Joe was born on February 24, 1942, in Stamford, Connecticut, the son of Henry and Marcia Lieberman
His family is Jewish; his paternal grandparents emigrated from Congress Poland and his maternal grandparents were from Austria-Hungary.

In 1963, Lieberman traveled to Mississippi to work in support of the civil rights movement. He received a Bachelor of Arts in both political science and economics from Yale University in 1964, and was the first member of his family to attend college. At Yale, he was editor of the Yale Daily News and a member of the Elihu Club. While at Yale Lieberman was introduced to conservative thinker William F. Buckley Jr., who was also editor of the Yale Daily News; Buckley and Lieberman maintained a social relationship. His roommate was Richard Sugarman, who later went on to become a Professor of Philosophy and Religion at the University of Vermont and advisor to 2016 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Lieberman later attended Yale Law School, receiving his Bachelor of Laws in 1967. After graduation from law school, Lieberman worked as a lawyer for the New Haven-based law firm Wiggin & Dana LLP.

was an American politician and lawyer who served as a United States senator from Connecticut from 1989 to 2013. A former member of the Democratic Party, he was its nominee for vice president of the United States in the 2000 U.S. presidential election. During his final term in office, he was officially listed as an independent Democrat and caucused with and chaired committees for the Democratic Party.

Lieberman was elected as a Democrat in 1970 to the Connecticut Senate, where he served three terms as majority leader. After an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1980, he served as the Connecticut attorney general from 1983 to 1989. He narrowly defeated Republican Party incumbent Lowell Weicker in 1988 to win election to the U.S. Senate and was re-elected in 1994, 2000, and 2006. He was the Democratic Party nominee for vice president in the 2000 presidential election, running with presidential nominee and then Vice President Al Gore, and becoming the first Jewish candidate on a U.S. major party presidential ticket.

In the 2000 presidential election, Gore and Lieberman won the popular vote by a margin of more than 500,000 votes but lost the deciding Electoral College to the Republican George W. Bush / Dick Cheney ticket 271–266. He also unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination in the 2004 U.S. presidential election. During his Senate re-election bid in 2006, Lieberman lost the Democratic primary election but won re-election in the general election as a third party candidate under the Connecticut for Lieberman party label.

Lieberman was officially listed in Senate records for the 110th and 111th congresses as an Independent Democrat, and sat as part of the Senate Democratic Caucus. After his speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention in which he endorsed John McCain for president, he no longer attended Democratic Caucus leadership strategy meetings or policy lunches. The Senate Democratic Caucus voted to allow him to keep the chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Subsequently, he announced that he would continue to caucus with the Democrats. Before the 2016 election, he endorsed Hillary Clinton for president and in 2020 endorsed Joe Biden for president.

As senator, Lieberman introduced and championed the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010 and legislation that led to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. During debate on the Affordable Care Act (ACA), as the crucial 60th vote needed to pass the legislation, his opposition to the public health insurance option was critical to its removal from the resulting bill signed by President Barack Obama.

In 1994, Lieberman made history by winning by the largest landslide ever in a Connecticut Senate race, drawing 67 percent of the vote and beating his opponent by more than 350,000 votes. Lieberman then served as chair of the Democratic Leadership Council from 1995 to 2001

In 2000, Lieberman was elected to a third Senate term, defeating the Republican candidate, Philip Giordano

Lieberman's 2000 Senate campaign was concurrent with that year's presidential election. In August 2000, Vice President Al Gore announced that he had selected Lieberman as his vice presidential running mate. Lieberman became the first practicing Jew to run for the nation's second-highest office

When control of the Senate switched from Republicans to Democrats in June 2001, Lieberman became Chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, with oversight responsibilities for a broad range of government activities. He was also a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee and chair of its Subcommittee Clean Air, Wetlands and Private Property; the Armed Services Committee, where he chaired the Airland Subcommittee and sat on the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities; and the Small Business Committee. When Republicans gained control of the Senate in January 2003, Lieberman resumed his role as ranking minority member of the committees he had once chaired.

Lieberman was an early supporter of the creation of the Department of Homeland Security as the chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, proposing organizing FEMA, the U.S. Customs Service, the U.S. Border Patrol, the U.S. Coast Guard, and other agencies under the new department. This proposal was eventually implemented in the Homeland Security Act of 2002.

Lieberman was involved in congressional oversight of the response to the H1N1 influenza (swine flu) pandemic and held four hearings on the subject in 2009, including one in Connecticut. At the hearings, he pressed the United States Department of Health and Human Services to distribute vaccines and antiviral medications at a quicker pace and to streamline the process.

In the 110th Congress, Lieberman was Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which is responsible for assuring the Federal Government's efficiency and effectiveness. He was also a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee; Senate Armed Services Committee, where he was Chairman of the Subcommittee on Air Land Forces and sat on the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities; and the Small Business Committee.

Lieberman was the author of numerous books, including the memoir In Praise of Public Life (2000; with Michael D’Orso) and, with his wife, Hadassah, An Amazing Adventure: Joe and Hadassah’s Personal Notes on the 2000 campaign (2003; with Sarah Crichton).