David Bruce Vitter was born on May 3,1961 and is an American politician, attorney, and lobbyist who represented Louisiana in the United States Senate from 2005 to 2017.
71 Facts About David Vitter
2.
David Vitter was the first Republican to represent Louisiana in the Senate since the Reconstruction Era, and the first ever Republican to be popularly elected.
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In 2007, David Vitter admitted to and apologized for past involvement with prostitution as part of a Washington, DC escort service which gained much notoriety and while not affecting his 2010 election, is believed to have played a part in his loss of the 2015 gubernatorial election.
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In 2010, David Vitter won a second Senate term by defeating Democratic US Representative Charlie Melancon.
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David Vitter unsuccessfully ran for governor to succeed the term-limited Bobby Jindal in the 2015 gubernatorial election.
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David Vitter lost the general election to Democrat John Bel Edwards.
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David Bruce Vitter was born on May 3,1961 in New Orleans, Louisiana.
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David Vitter is the son of Audrey Malvina and Albert Leopold Vitter.
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David Vitter graduated in 1979 from De La Salle High School in New Orleans.
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David Vitter was a practicing lawyer, and adjunct law professor at Tulane and Loyola University New Orleans.
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David Vitter's brother Jeffrey is a computer scientist who has served as chancellor of the University of Mississippi from January 2016 to January 2019.
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David Vitter was a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1992 to 1999.
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David Vitter has argued for ethics reform and term limits since he was in the Louisiana Legislature in the early 1990s.
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David Vitter opposed gambling during his tenure in the Louisiana House.
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David Vitter won a special election to Louisiana's 1st congressional district in 1999, succeeding Republican US Representative Bob Livingston, who resigned after disclosure that he had committed adultery.
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Vitter was second, with 31,741, and white nationalist David Duke finished third with 28,055 votes.
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In 2000 and 2002, David Vitter was re-elected with more than 80 percent of the vote in what had become a safe Republican district.
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In 2001, David Vitter co-authored legislation to restrict the number of physicians allowed to prescribe RU-486, a drug used in medical abortions.
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In 2003, David Vitter proposed to amend the US Constitution to ban same-sex marriage.
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In 2002, David Vitter was preparing to run for governor in 2003, with the incumbent, Republican Mike Foster, prevented by term limits from running again.
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In 2004, David Vitter ran to replace Democrat John Breaux in the US Senate.
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On November 2,2004, David Vitter won the jungle primary, garnering a majority of the vote, while the rest of the vote was mostly split among the Democratic contenders.
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David Vitter was the first Republican in Louisiana to be popularly elected as a US Senator.
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David Vitter began fundraising for his 2010 reelection run in December 2008.
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David Vitter raised $731,000 in the first quarter of 2009 and $2.5 million for his 2010 campaign.
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David Vitter had wide leads against potential Democratic opponents in aggregate general election polling.
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On November 4,2010, David Vitter was re-elected as Louisiana Senator, defeating his Democratic rival, Melancon.
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David Vitter has identified himself as a political conservative throughout his political career.
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David Vitter's stated positions include a balanced budget constitutional amendment, abolishing the federal and state estate tax, increasing local police forces, and an assortment of health care, tax and national defense reforms.
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In October 2007, David Vitter introduced an amendment barring all federal public funds to health care providers and Planned Parenthood that provide services that include abortion.
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David Vitter argued that the funds are used for overhead costs that benefit the abortion services.
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David Vitter's amendment passed the Senate but later was stalled in the House.
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David Vitter was one of 35 Senators to vote against the Big 3 Bailout bill.
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David Vitter soon apologized for the phrasing of the comment, which did not appear in the Congressional Record.
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David Vitter later introduced an amendment that would remove the cap entirely for this particular spill.
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In May 2013, David Vitter introduced the Chemical Safety Improvement Act, a bipartisan bill to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act, which would have regulated the introduction of new or already existing chemicals.
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In September 2007, David Vitter opposed an increase of $35 billion for the State Children's Health Insurance Program, the national program to provide health care for children from families who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but cannot afford private health insurance.
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David Vitter said he preferred that private health insurance provide the needed care and deemed the bill as "Hillarycare", a reference to the 1993 Clinton health care plan created by Hillary Clinton which proposed universal health care.
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David Vitter refused to pledge to a voluntary term limit when running for the US Congress in 1999.
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David Vitter's opponent characterized this stance as hypocritical, and Vitter countered that unless it were universally applied, the loss of seniority would disadvantage his district.
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David Vitter eventually decided to retire from the Senate in 2016 after serving two terms.
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In 2007, in response to lobbying scandals involving, among others, Jack Abramoff and Duke Cunningham, Congress passed a lobbying and ethics reform package to which David Vitter proposed a package of five amendments.
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David Vitter opposed a bid by the Jena Band of Choctaw Indians to build a casino in Louisiana, arguing that the build site was not historically part of their tribal lands.
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David Vitter lobbied the Interior Department and included language in an appropriations bill to stop the casino.
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Later, David Vitter included the provisions of the act in an amendment to an appropriation bill for the Department Of Homeland Security.
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An editorial writer for The Boston Globe wrote that David Vitter's position was "unreasonable" because the guns Sullivan sought to control are those commonly used in crimes: those stolen or purchased on the black market.
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In September 2007, David Vitter announced that he got "a critical concession" from the White House that decreased Louisiana's obligations for hurricane recovery by $1 billion.
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David Vitter has been actively involved with legislation concerning illegal immigrants.
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In October 2007, David Vitter introduced an amendment withholding Community Oriented Policing Services funds from any sanctuary city which bans city employees and police officers from asking people about their immigration status in violation of the Illegal Immigration Act.
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In November 2007, David Vitter introduced a bill requiring banks to verify that no customer was an illegal immigrant before issuing banking or credit cards.
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In September 2007, David Vitter earmarked $100,000 in federal money for a Christian group, the Louisiana Family Forum, known for challenging evolution by means of "teaching the controversy" which promotes intelligent design.
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David Vitter was one of six senate Republicans to propose an amendment to a bill which would stop the Federal Communications Commission from enforcing network neutrality which they allege is a violation of the First Amendment.
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David Vitter stated it would recreate "housing projects exactly as they were", isolated and riddled with crime.
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The bill requires that demolished housing projects be replaced with mixed income communities which local housing advocates say is different from the massive public housing developments that David Vitter is referring to.
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In December 2007, David Vitter prevented the bill from leaving the committee.
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David Vitter blocked President Obama's nominee for the new Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator until he received a written commitment on flood control issues from the nominee and FEMA.
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David Vitter opposed President Barack Obama's health reform legislation; he 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.
58.
In October 2005, at a Lafayette Parish Republican Executive Committee luncheon, David Vitter compared gay marriage to hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which came through the same geographical areas.
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In 2005 David Vitter introduced a resolution supporting prayer at school board meetings in response to an earlier district court decision that the Louisiana's Tangipahoa Parish practice of opening meetings with Christian prayers was unconstitutional.
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David Vitter later reintroduced the resolution in January 2007 after a panel of the Fifth Circuit Court concluded that Christian prayers were unconstitutional but was undecided whether nonsectarian prayers were allowed.
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In recognition of the Tea Party protests opposing President Barack Obama's policies, David Vitter proposed Senate Resolution 98, which would designate April 15 in years both 2009 and 2010 as "National TEA Party Day".
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In September 2010, David Vitter signed a candidate pledge from the North Central Louisiana TEA Party Patriots.
63.
In September 2007, during hearings of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, David Vitter expressed serious doubts about the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea treaty concerning issues of US sovereignty echoing an array of conservative groups against the treaty including the National Center for Public Policy Research, The Heritage Foundation and the Center for Security Policy.
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David Vitter helped write the Water Resources and Development Act for flood-control, hurricane-protection and coastal-restoration projects including $3.6 billion for Louisiana.
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David Vitter called it the "single most important" legislation for assisting Louisiana with its recovery from hurricane Katrina.
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On July 16,2007, after a week of self-imposed seclusion, David Vitter emerged and called a news conference.
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In 2004, David Vitter had denied allegations that he had patronized prostitutes.
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On September 8,2015, reporter Derek Myers was fired from WVLA-TV after asking David Vitter, who was running for governor, about allegations that the senator had frequented prostitutes.
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David Vitter announced on January 21,2014, that he would run for governor of Louisiana in the 2015 election.
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David Vitter was the first sitting or ex-US Senator to launch a gubernatorial bid in Louisiana since 1904, when Democrat Newton Blanchard was elected.
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In 2016, David Vitter succeeded after a five-year battle in passing through the Senate landmark legislation to reform the country's chemical safety laws.