82 Facts About Bob Corker

In 1978, Corker founded a construction company, which he sold in 1990.

Bob Corker ran in the 1994 United States Senate election in Tennessee but was defeated in the Republican primary by Bill Frist.

Bob Corker later acquired two of the largest real estate companies in Chattanooga, Tennessee, before being elected the 71st Mayor of Chattanooga in March 2001; he served one term.

Bob Corker announced his candidacy for the 2006 United States Senate election in Tennessee after Frist announced his retirement.

On September 26,2017, Bob Corker announced that he would not seek reelection in 2018; fellow Republican US Representative Marsha Blackburn was elected to succeed him.

Bob Corker's family moved to Tennessee when he was eleven.

Bob Corker graduated from Chattanooga High School in 1970 and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Management from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in 1974.

In 1999, Bob Corker acquired two of the largest real estate companies in Chattanooga: real estate developer Osborne Building Corporation and property management firm Stone Fort Land Company.

Bob Corker first ran for the United States Senate in 1994, finishing second in the Republican primary to eventual winner Bill Frist.

Bob Corker went on to campaign for Frist in the general election.

From 1995 to 1996, Bob Corker was the Commissioner of Finance and Administration for the State of Tennessee, an appointed position, working for Governor Don Sundquist.

Bob Corker was elected on an aggressive and specific platform, focused primarily on economy development, public safety, and education.

Bob Corker recognized the need for access to capital to assist start up and emerging businesses and created the Chattanooga Opportunity Fund, a $1.5 million fund established for investment in locally owned start-up companies, minority owned companies, and existing small businesses.

Bob Corker sought to enhance the city's ability to recruit companies reliant on high-level technology.

Bob Corker laid out and executed a digital vision for the city during his tenure.

Bob Corker launched MetroNet with a goal of providing super-speed Gigabit Ethernet connection to the Internet for businesses in the downtown and Southside.

In 2003, Bob Corker started a program called ChattanoogaRESULTS, facilitating monthly meetings with public service department administrators to evaluate their performance and set goals for improvement.

Bob Corker has credited the increased collaboration between departments for decreasing crime in Chattanooga.

Half of the project was financed with a city bond, while Bob Corker led a fundraising team in more than 81 meetings in 90 days that raised $51 million from the private sector.

The 21st Century Waterfront opened 35 months later, as Bob Corker had promised, and is widely credited with transforming the city of Chattanooga.

In 2004, Bob Corker announced that he would seek the US Senate seat to be vacated by incumbent Republican Senator Bill Frist, who had announced that he would not run for reelection.

The race between Ford and Bob Corker was described as "among the most competitive and nasty" in the country.

Bob Corker denounced the ad and asked that it be taken off the air.

Bob Corker won the election by less than three percentage points.

Bob Corker was the only non-incumbent Republican to be elected to the US Senate in the 110th Congress.

Bob Corker was one of the original members of the Gang of 10, now consisting of twenty members, which is a bipartisan coalition seeking comprehensive energy reform.

In June 2008 Bob Corker was among the 36 senators who voted against a cloture motion needed to allow the further progress of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, a measure to set up a "cap-and-trade" framework to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

Shortly before, Bob Corker had offered three amendments to the act which focused on returning as much money as possible to American consumers, in part by eliminating free allowances and international offsets.

In 2008, Bob Corker was one of the only sixteen Senators who opposed the tax rebate stimulus plan, criticizing it as "political stimulus" for electoral campaigns.

Bob Corker later described the stimulus package that passed Congress as "silly".

In December 2008, Bob Corker opposed the federal bailout of failing US automakers, and expressed doubt that the companies could be salvaged.

Bob Corker proposed that federal funds be provided for automakers only if accompanied by cuts in labor costs and other concessions from unions.

The United Auto Workers, which had previously accepted a series of cuts in its current contract, sought to put off any further cuts until 2011, while Bob Corker requested that cuts go into effect in 2009.

In September 2009, Bob Corker became the ranking member of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, replacing former Sen.

On May 20,2010, despite his initial role as the key Republican negotiator on financial regulatory reform, Corker voted against the Senate financial regulations bill, which included provisions for increased scrutiny of financial derivatives traded by major US banks and financial institutions.

Bob Corker opposes limits to credit card fees imposed by banks on merchant transactions.

Bob Corker was one of three Republicans to support the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in September 2010.

Bob Corker was one of thirteen Republican senators to vote for the final version.

Bob Corker voted with 40 Republicans and 5 Democrats to stop the passage of the bill.

Bob Corker has called for tempering the role of outside spending in elections by giving political candidates the right to approve advertising on their behalf made by an outside party committee.

On September 26,2017, Bob Corker announced that he would not seek re-election in 2018, keeping his pledge when he ran in 2006 to only serve two terms in the Senate.

However, Bob Corker refused to use his powers as Senate Foreign Relations chairman to use procedural leverage in the Senate to influence Trump's rhetoric and actions.

Bob Corker is considered a moderate conservative and is often labelled as a moderate rather than a conservative.

Bob Corker responded that he "was wrong in 1994" when he said that the government should not interfere with an individual's right to an abortion, stating that he now believes that life begins at conception.

However, in 2015, Bob Corker was one of 11 Republican Senators who voted with Democrats in support of giving social security benefits to same-sex couples living in states that had not yet recognized same-sex marriage.

In June 2018, Bob Corker was one of thirteen Republican senators to sign a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions requesting a moratorium on the Trump administration family separation policy while Congress drafted legislation.

In 2006, Bob Corker supported making the 2001 tax cut and the 2003 tax cut permanent.

Bob Corker has shown interest in replacing the federal progressive income tax with a flat tax.

Bob Corker endorsed the initial $350 billion of TARP funding in 2008, and opposed releasing the additional $350 billion of it in 2009.

In 2011, Bob Corker voted in favor of the Republican alternative budget proposed by Representative Paul Ryan, a proposal that would eliminate the health care provided through the Medicare program and instead give seniors subsidies for part of the cost of obtaining private medical insurance.

Bob Corker referred to such programs as Medicare and Social Security as "generational theft".

In 2013, Bob Corker endorsed the Marketplace Fairness Act and voted for its passage in the Senate.

Bob Corker was the only Republican senator to vote against the Senate version of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 before it was sent to a conference committee with the House, citing concerns about the deficit.

Bob Corker traveled to Iraq for the first time as a senator in February 2007 as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee to study the situation on the ground.

Bob Corker said that any further reduction in US forces in Iraq should be based on improved conditions in the country.

In May 2008, Corker and Democratic US Senator Bob Casey advocated for greater burden sharing among Iraq's neighbors in funding reconstruction efforts in the country.

Bob Corker expected that the United States is having to build the economic and governmental structure of Afghanistan after decades of war.

Bob Corker furthered that the US not intervening in Syria with a strike in 2013 "said to the world that we could not be counted on" and that the US propped up Assad more than any other country.

Bob Corker worked with Nancy Pelosi and the Obama administration to pave the way for that legislation and basically rolled out the red carpet for the Iran deal, and those are pretty factual.

Bob Corker supports supplying Ukraine with lethal weapons.

In 2017, Bob Corker criticized President Trump's provocative tweets against North Korea as impulsive.

Bob Corker's comments were not met with public dissent; Republicans appeared to agree with Bob Corker.

In October 2017, Bob Corker said he would "get on the phone with someone" within a day to get answers to why the Trump administration had missed the October 1 deadline to install penalties on Russian entities.

Bob Corker supported President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

In June 2017, Bob Corker voted against a resolution by Rand Paul and Chris Murphy that would block President Trump's $510 million sale of precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia that made up a portion of the $110 billion arms sale Trump announced during his visit to Saudi Arabia the previous year.

In March 2018, Bob Corker voted to table a resolution spearheaded by Bernie Sanders, Chris Murphy, and Mike Lee that would have required President Trump to withdraw American troops either in or influencing Yemen within the next 30 days unless they were combating Al-Qaeda.

In September 2009, Bob Corker opposed a health-care reform amendment that would legally allow Americans to buy cheaper Canadian drugs.

Bob Corker voted against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in December 2009, and he voted against the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.

In late February 2010, Bob Corker became the sole senator to back retiring Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky in filibustering a 30-day extension of expiring unemployment and COBRA benefits.

Amid Republican efforts to repeal the ACA following the election of Trump, Bob Corker said in July 2017 he would support a repeal bill in the Senate even if it did not include a replacement effort.

In January 2018, Bob Corker was one of thirty-six Republican senators to sign a letter to President Trump requesting he preserve the North American Free Trade Agreement by modernizing it for the economy of the 21st Century.

In September 2018, after President Trump announced tariffs on 200 billion worth of goods from China, Bob Corker stated that the move was misrepresented and Americans would be paying for the tariffs.

Bob Corker stated that while China was using the US and other countries to its advantage, the administration had not articulated what the US hoped to achieve with imposing the tariffs.

Bob Corker opposed John McCain's 2008 campaign proposal to suspend the 18-cents-per-gallon federal gasoline tax, calling it "pandering extraordinaire".

In 2003, Osborne Enterprises, an affiliate of the real estate company Bob Corker Group, sold protected wetlands near South Chickamauga Creek in Chattanooga to Wal-Mart for $4.6 million.

Prochaska accused Bob Corker of selling the land shortly after the construction easement was approved.

However, public records show that the land was approved for development by the city prior to Bob Corker becoming mayor in April 2001.

In 2006, during Bob Corker's United States Senate campaign against Democrat Harold Ford Jr.

The suit alleged that Bob Corker did not fully disclose his interest in the property where the Wal-Mart was built or in the adjacent nature area at the time the deal was made.

On October 11,2006, The Commercial Appeal reported that the blind trust that Bob Corker set up to run his businesses to avoid conflicts of interest while he was mayor "may not have been all that blind".

Bob Corker met often with employees from his private companies while mayor from 2001 to 2005, and he shared business tips with others.

Bob Corker got help organizing his 2001 mayoral campaign from City Hall, where a government secretary passed on voting lists and set up meetings for the millionaire commercial real estate developer.