44 Facts About Chris Coons

1.

Christopher Andrew Coons was born on September 9,1963 and is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Delaware since 2010.

2.

Chris Coons received graduate degrees from Yale Divinity School and Yale Law School.

3.

Chris Coons went to work as a volunteer relief worker in Kenya, where he had taken classes at the University of Nairobi, later returning to the US to work for the Coalition for the Homeless in New York.

4.

Chris Coons spent some time as a legal clerk in New York before returning to Delaware in 1996, where he spent eight years as in-house counsel for a materials manufacturing company.

5.

Chris Coons served as president of the New Castle County Council from 2001 to 2005 and county executive of New Castle County from 2005 to 2010.

6.

Chris Coons defeated the Republican nominee, Christine O'Donnell, to succeed Ted Kaufman, who had been appointed to the seat when Joe Biden resigned to become Vice President of the United States.

7.

Chris Coons previously served as ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs and the Judiciary Subcommittee on Bankruptcy and the Courts.

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8.

Chris Coons co-chaired the 2017 and 2019 National Prayer Breakfasts and co-chairs the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast.

9.

Chris Coons was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, the son of Sarah Louise "Sally" and Kenelm Winslow "Ken" Chris Coons.

10.

Chris Coons's parents struggled financially and divorced in the mid-1970s.

11.

Chris Coons graduated from the private Tower Hill School and then Amherst College in 1985 with a Bachelor of Arts in chemistry and political science.

12.

Chris Coons then worked as a volunteer for the South African Council of Churches and as a relief worker in Kenya, before returning to the US to work for the National Coalition for the Homeless in New York.

13.

Chris Coons clerked for Judge Jane Richards Roth on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and then worked for the National "I Have a Dream" Foundation in New York.

14.

Chris Coons has worked for several nonprofits, including the Coalition for the Homeless, the education-oriented "I Have a Dream" Foundation, and the South African Council of Churches.

15.

Chris Coons is on the Board of Selectors of Jefferson Awards for Public Service.

16.

Chris Coons first became involved in politics working on behalf of Republican politicians.

17.

Chris Coons worked on Bill Roth's US Senate campaign in 1982.

18.

Chris Coons was a delegate from Wilmington to the 1996 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

19.

Chris Coons's first elected office was president of the New Castle County Council, elected in 2000 and serving four years before being elected county executive in 2004.

20.

Chris Coons was the endorsed candidate of the New Castle County Democratic Party in 2008, and was re-nominated by the party on September 9,2008.

21.

Chris Coons was re-elected on November 4,2008, unopposed in the general election.

22.

Chris Coons ran in the 2010 special election for the US Senate seat then held by Democrat Ted Kaufman, who was appointed after Joe Biden resigned to take office as vice president.

23.

Chris Coons was unopposed in the Democratic primary, and expected to face Republican Congressman and former Governor Mike Castle in the general election.

24.

Chris Coons was elected to his first full term by defeating Republican challenger Kevin Wade and Green Party candidate Andrew Groff on November 4,2014.

25.

On November 15,2010, Chris Coons was sworn in as Delaware's newest senator by Vice President Joe Biden, the former occupant of Chris Coons's Senate seat.

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26.

The Affordable Care Act had already been passed when Chris Coons took office, but he has voted against repealing it, emphasizing that seniors in Delaware would have to pay higher prescription drug prices if it was repealed.

27.

In June 2013, after the death of Democratic senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, Chris Coons was appointed to his seat on the influential Appropriations Committee, becoming the first senator from Delaware to serve on the committee in 40 years.

28.

In October 2013, Chris Coons announced the formation of the inaugural Senate Chicken Caucus in the United States Senate.

29.

Chris Coons was mentioned as a possible replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia in February 2016.

30.

In July 2017, Chris Coons voted in favor of the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act that placed sanctions on Iran together with Russia and North Korea.

31.

In November 2020, Chris Coons was named a candidate for Secretary of State in the Biden Administration.

32.

Chris Coons said there were "some scary and chaotic moments" during the attack.

33.

Chris Coons called for the invocation of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution the day after the event on Good Morning America.

34.

Chris Coons was revealed in a sting operation by Greenpeace to be a target for ExxonMobil in efforts to weaken the climate regulations in President Biden's INVEST in America Act.

35.

Chris Coons supported the Feinstein Amendment, which sought to ban known and suspected terrorists from buying firearms.

36.

In December 2010, Chris Coons voted for the ratification of New START, a nuclear arms reduction treaty between the United States and Russian Federation obliging both countries to have no more than 1,550 strategic warheads as well as 700 launchers deployed during the next seven years along with providing a continuation of on-site inspections that halted when START I expired the previous year.

37.

Chris Coons is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations committee and is a staunch supporter of Israel.

38.

Chris Coons has been a guest speaker at AIPAC events.

39.

Chris Coons is a co-sponsor of a Senate resolution expressing objection to the UN Security Council Resolution 2334 because it undermines direct talks between the parties.

40.

In November 2018, Chris Coons joined Senator Marco Rubio and a bipartisan group of lawmakers in sending the Trump administration a letter raising concerns about China's undue influence over media outlets and academic institutions in the United States.

41.

Chris Coons is against right-to-work laws, and supports internet sales tax.

42.

In May 2018, Chris Coons was one of 12 senators to sign a letter to Chairman of the Federal Labor Relations Authority Colleen Kiko urging the FLRA to end efforts to close its Boston regional office until Congress debated the matter, adding that closing the FLRA's seven regional offices would cause staff to be placed farther away from the federal employees whose rights they protect.

43.

Chris Coons proposed the Stronger Patents Act, which would make it more expensive to challenge patents and thus easier to enforce them.

44.

Chris Coons is Presbyterian, his wife is Catholic, and they attend St Ann's Roman Catholic Church in the city.