1. Raymond Jon Tester was born on August 21,1956 and is an American politician and farmer who served from 2007 to 2025 as a United States senator from Montana and from 2005 to 2007 as president of the Montana Senate.
61 Facts About Jon Tester
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Jon Tester was first elected to the US Senate in 2006, defeating Republican incumbent Conrad Burns in one of the closest Senate races of that year.
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Jon Tester ran for reelection to a fourth term in 2024, losing to Republican nominee Tim Sheehy.
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Jon Tester voted against the DREAM Act and against Democratic proposals to expand background checks, and has supported efforts to loosen restrictions on gun exports.
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Jon Tester voted for the Affordable Care Act, the Respect for Marriage Act, and has supported abortion rights.
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Jon Tester was born on August 21,1956, in Havre, Montana, one of three sons of Helen Marie, who was born in North Dakota and David O Jon Tester, born in Utah.
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Jon Tester is the descendant of Mormon pioneers on his father's side.
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Jon Tester's father was of English descent and his mother was of Swedish ancestry.
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Jon Tester grew up in Chouteau County, near the town of Big Sandy, Montana, on land that his grandfather homesteaded in 1912.
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Jon Tester then worked for two years as a music teacher in the Big Sandy School District before returning to his family's farm and custom butcher shop.
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Jon Tester spent five years as chairman of the Big Sandy School Board of Trustees and was on the Big Sandy Soil Conservation Service Committee and the Chouteau County Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service Committee.
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Jon Tester was first elected to represent the 45th district in the Montana Senate in 1998.
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Jon Tester was elected the minority whip for the 2001 session.
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In 2005, Jon Tester was elected president of the Montana Senate, the chief presiding officer of the Montana Legislature's upper chamber.
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Term limits prohibited Jon Tester from running for State Senate for a third consecutive term.
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Jon Tester cited a prescription drug benefit program, reinstatement of the "Made in Montana" promotion program, a law to encourage renewable energy development, and his involvement with a bill that led to an historic increase in public school funding as accomplishments while in office.
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In May 2005, Jon Tester announced his candidacy for the US Senate seat held by the Republican incumbent Senator Conrad Burns.
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Jon Tester was the second Democrat to enter the race, after state auditor John Morrison.
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Jon Tester had more support from his fellow legislators, but Morrison, whose grandfather was governor of Nebraska, raised significantly more money and had greater statewide name recognition.
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In June 2006, Jon Tester won the Democratic nomination by more than 25 percentage points in a six-way primary.
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Jon Tester was said to have "gained momentum in the closing weeks of the campaign through an extensive grass-roots effort".
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Jon Tester sought reelection to a second term and was challenged by Republican US Representative Denny Rehberg.
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Jon Tester said that he stood by his votes on both bills, saying that the ACA contained "a lot of good stuff".
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The Los Angeles Times noted that Jon Tester diverged from his party on matters such as gun rights and illegal immigration.
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Jon Tester received 253,876 votes to Rosendale's 235,963.
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President Donald Trump made a particular effort to unseat Jon Tester, traveling to Montana four times over the preceding months.
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Jon Tester's reelection was considered pivotal for Democrats to maintain their Senate majority in the 119th United States Congress.
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Jon Tester was one of the Democratic Party's last remaining red-state US senators, and Montana was one of five states with Senate delegations split between the Republican and Democratic Parties.
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Jon Tester made some moves to distance himself from the Joe Biden administration, but his voting record remained in line with the Democratic Party.
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In July 2024, Jon Tester called for Biden to withdraw from the 2024 United States presidential election.
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Jon Tester became chairman of the Banking Committee's Securities, Insurance, and Investment Subcommittee in 2013.
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Jon Tester opposed the 2013 appointment of Larry Summers as chairman of the Federal Reserve; lacking a committee majority, Summers then withdrew his name from consideration.
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Jon Tester received more money in campaign contributions from lobbyists than any other member of Congress in 2018.
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Jon Tester was on Capitol Hill for the 2021 United States Electoral College vote count on January 6, when Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol.
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Jon Tester was in his office in the Hart Senate Office Building when the Capitol was breached.
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Jon Tester called the storming a "despicable and dangerous attack on our democracy" and "a coup by domestic terrorists", and blamed Trump for instigating it.
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Jon Tester called fellow Montana senator Steve Daines an "enabler" of the attack, as Daines supported Trump's unproven voter fraud claims.
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Jon Tester was one of two Democratic senators to filibuster the American Jobs Act in 2011.
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Jon Tester was the only Democratic senator from a Republican-leaning state to oppose a stopgap funding measure to end a three-day government shutdown in 2018 and reopen the federal government.
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Jon Tester became one of the Democrats in the Senate to support the 2018 Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act, a bill that partially repealed Dodd-Frank and relaxed key banking regulations.
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Jon Tester became the first Democrat endorsed by Friends of Traditional Banking, a political action committee that had previously endorsed Republicans.
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Jon Tester voted against a Democrat-sponsored proposal in 2016 that would have required background checks for purchases at gun shows and for purchases of guns online nationwide.
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Jon Tester argued that the bill would "have blocked family members and neighbors from buying and selling guns to one another without a background check".
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Jon Tester voted for a second Democrat-sponsored proposal to ban gun sales to people on the terrorist watch list.
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Jon Tester supported the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, voting for it in December 2009.
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Jon Tester voted for the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.
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Jon Tester said in 2017 that Democrats should consider a single-payer health care system.
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In 2010, Jon Tester voted against the DREAM Act, which would have created a pathway to citizenship for the foreign-born children of illegal immigrants.
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In 2017, Jon Tester criticized Trump for saying that he would cancel DACA in six months.
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Jon Tester voted to convict Trump during both of his impeachment trials.
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Jon Tester voted for the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010.
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Jon Tester voted for the Respect for Marriage Act of 2022.
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Jon Tester voted in 2018 against confirming Brett Kavanaugh as an associate justice of the Supreme Court.
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Jon Tester was one of seven Senate Democrats to join Republican Senator Rand Paul in his 10-hour filibuster against reauthorizing the PATRIOT Act in 2015.
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Jon Tester opposed the Supreme Court decision Citizens United, which allows corporations and unions to donate unlimited amounts of money to third-party political groups.
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Jon Tester proposed a constitutional amendment to reverse the decision, arguing that it had a bad impact on American democracy.
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Jon Tester voted against Trump's nominees Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
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Jon Tester voted to confirm Joe Biden's nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson.
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Jon Tester did not support Gina Haspel's nomination in 2018 to become CIA Director.
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In 2018, as ranking member of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, Jon Tester raised concerns about the nomination of Ronny Jackson to head the US Department of Veterans Affairs.
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Johnny Isakson, the Republican chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, defended Jon Tester, saying he had no problem with Jon Tester's handling of the nomination.