Mitch McConnell

The Republican senator from Kentucky for than three decades, Mitch McConnell was one of the most forceful voices of conservative opinion and decree in the United States Senate, where he was praised and criticized for using his position as Senate Majority Leader to block and oppose numerous efforts by President Barack Obama and other Democratic leaders. Born in Sheffield, Alabama, McConnell relocated with his family to Kentucky in his teenaged years. There, he attended DuPont Manual High School and later, the University of Louisville, where he earned his degree in political science in 1964. McConnell then studied at the University of Kentucky College of Law while also serving briefly in the United States Army Reserve in Louisville. Following graduation, McConnell laid the groundwork for his future political career as an intern for Senator Sherman Cooper and later assistant to Senator Marlow Cook. He became a Deputy Assistant Attorney General under President Gerald Ford before assuming the role of Judge/Executive in Jefferson County, Kentucky in 1977. After successfully reclaiming his seat in 1981, McConnell narrowly won the Kentucky Senate seat from Democratic incumbent Walter Dee Huddleston, and established himself as a centrist with a particular interest in foreign aid; he backed anti-apartheid legislation in 1984 and promoted funding and election support in Egypt, Israel and Southeast Asia. But after winning re-election bids in 1990 and 1996, McConnell's politics moved into more conservative territory: he was a fierce opponent of campaign reform, especially the McCain-Feingold bill, the Affordable Care Act of 2010 and background for gun purchases. His most dramatic show of opposition came during the presidency of Barack Obama, whose support for biofuel diversity, research into climate change, closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and numerous other decisions and initiatives were blocked or decried by McConnell. The senator, who told a press outlet in 2010 that his core goal was to ensure that Obama was a one-term president, essentially became an emblem of both Republican determination in the face of Democratic agenda, especially after his assumption of Senate Majority Leader in 2015, as well as a symbol of his party's perceived tendency towards obstructionism. His most forceful defiance of President Obama came in 2016 when he blocked the nomination of Merrick Garland, the president's choice to replace Chief Justice Antonin Scalia, on the Supreme Court, for nearly an entire year. McConnell, who was frequently criticized for maintaining the will of the political establishment during his lengthy tenure, appeared to hold that line during the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, whom he frequently criticized for inflammatory comments; however, he rescinded his initial support for Senator Rand Paul's presidential campaign and supported Trump as both candidate and 45th president, voting affirmatively for many of his cabinet appointments and legislative acts while doubling down his determination to repeal the Affordable Care Act.