75 Facts About Mark Warner

Mark Robert Warner was born on December 15,1954 and is an American businessman and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Virginia, a seat he has held since 2009.

Mark Warner is vice chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus and chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

In 2006, Mark Warner was widely expected to pursue the Democratic nomination in the 2008 US presidential election, but he announced in October 2006 that he would not run, citing a desire not to disrupt his family life.

Mark Warner delivered the keynote address at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, and was considered to be a potential vice presidential candidate until he took himself out of consideration after winning the Democratic nomination for the US Senate.

Mark Warner was reelected in 2014, narrowly defeating Ed Gillespie, and in 2020 defeating Republican nominee Daniel Gade by twelve percentage points.

Mark Warner grew up in Illinois, and later in Vernon, Connecticut, where he graduated from Rockville High School, a public secondary school.

Mark Warner graduated from George Washington University, earning his Bachelor of Arts in political science in 1977.

Mark Warner was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa and graduated as the valedictorian of his class with a 4.0 grade point average.

Mark Warner was the first in his family to graduate from college.

Mark Warner went on to serve as Dodd's senatorial campaign manager during his freshman year of law school.

Mark Warner then graduated from Harvard Law School with a Juris Doctor in 1980 and coached the law school's first intramural women's basketball team.

Mark Warner then took a job raising money for the Democratic Party based in Atlanta from 1980 to 1982.

Mark Warner attempted to found two unsuccessful businesses before becoming a general contractor for cellular businesses and investors.

Mark Warner co-founded Capital Cellular Corporation, and built up an estimated net worth of more than $200 million.

Mark Warner involved himself in public efforts related to health care, transportation, telecommunications, information technology and education.

Mark Warner managed Douglas Wilder's successful 1989 gubernatorial campaign and served as chairman of the state Democratic Party from 1993 to 1995.

Mark Warner unsuccessfully ran for the US Senate in 1996 against incumbent Republican John Warner in a "Warner versus Warner" election.

Mark Warner performed strongly in the state's rural areas, making the contest much closer than many pundits expected.

In 2001 Mark Warner campaigned for governor as a moderate Democrat after years of slowly building up a power base in rural Virginia, particularly Southwest Virginia.

Mark Warner's opponents were Republican Mark Earley, the state's attorney general, and the Libertarian candidate William B Redpath.

Mark Warner won with 52.16 percent of the votes, 96,943 votes ahead of the next opponent.

Mark Warner had a significant funding advantage, spending $20 million compared with Earley's $10 million.

Mark Warner campaigned in favor of two regional sales tax increases to fund transportation.

In 2004, Mark Warner worked with Democratic and moderate Republican legislators and the business community to reform the tax code, lowering food and some income taxes while increasing the sales and cigarette taxes.

Mark Warner entered into an agreement with Democrats and moderate Republicans in the Virginia Senate to cap state car tax reimbursements to local governments.

Mark Warner chaired the Southern Governors' Association and was a member of the Democratic Governors Association.

Mark Warner had supported and campaigned for Kaine, and many national pundits considered Kaine's victory to be further evidence of Mark Warner's political clout in Virginia.

On November 29,2005, Mark Warner commuted the death sentence of Robin Lovitt to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Mark Warner arranged for DNA tests of evidence left from the case of Roger Keith Coleman, who was put to death by the state in 1992.

Mark Warner was believed to be preparing to run for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008, and had "done everything but announce his candidacy" before suddenly stating in October 2006 he would not run for president, citing family reasons.

Mark Warner declared on September 13,2007 that he would run for the US Senate seat being vacated by the retiring John Mark Warner in 2008.

John Mark Warner endorsed him, which was seen as a factor of his win by over 30 points.

Mark Warner held a wide lead over his Republican opponent, fellow former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore, for virtually the entire campaign.

Mark Warner delivered the keynote address at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

In 2014, Warner faced Ed Gillespie, who had previously served as Counselor to the President under George W Bush and chairman of the Republican National Committee.

In 2020, Mark Warner faced college professor and US Army veteran Daniel Gade.

Mark Warner was later named to the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2011.

In 2009, Mark Warner voted for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the stimulus bill.

When offered the chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in preparation for the 2012 election cycle, Mark Warner declined because he wanted to keep a distance from the partisanship of the role.

Mark Warner became the senior senator on January 3,2013 when Jim Webb left the Senate and was replaced by Tim Kaine, who was lieutenant governor while Mark Warner was governor.

Mark Warner has been identified as a radical centrist, working to foster compromise in the Senate.

Mark Warner was ranked the 10th most bipartisan member of the US Senate during the 114th United States Congress in the Bipartisan Index, created by The Lugar Center and the McCourt School of Public Policy to assess congressional bipartisanship.

Mark Warner voted for the 2010 Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare, helping the Senate reach the required sixty votes to prevent it from going to a filibuster.

In January 2019, Mark Warner was one of six Democratic senators to introduce the American Miners Act of 2019, a bill that would amend the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 to swap funds in excess of the amounts needed to meet existing obligations under the Abandoned Mine Land fund to the 1974 Pension Plan as part of an effort to prevent its insolvency as a result of coal company bankruptcies and the 2008 financial crisis.

In September 2019, amid discussions to prevent a government shutdown, Mark Warner was one of six Democratic senators to sign a letter to congressional leadership advocating for the passage of legislation that would permanently fund health care and pension benefits for retired coal miners as "families in Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming, Alabama, Colorado, North Dakota and New Mexico" would start to receive notifications of health care termination by the end of the following month.

In 2010, Mark Warner worked with a Republican colleague on the Banking Committee, Bob Corker, to write a key portion of the Dodd-Frank Act that seeks to end taxpayer bailouts of failing Wall Street financial firms by requiring "advance funeral plans" for large financial firms.

In 2018, Mark Warner became one of the few Democrats in the Senate supporting a bill that would relax "key banking regulations".

Mark Warner was the original Democratic sponsor of the Startup Act legislation and has partnered with the bill's original author, Jerry Moran, to introduce three iterations of the bill: Startup Act in 2011, Startup Act 2.0 in 2012 and Startup Act 3.0 in early 2013.

Mark Warner has called the legislation the "logical next step" after enactment of the JOBS Act.

In June 2017, Mark Warner voted to support Trump's $350 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia.

In September 2016, in advance of UN Security Council resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, Mark Warner signed an AIPAC-sponsored letter urging President Obama to veto "one-sided" resolutions against Israel.

In July 2017, Mark Warner voted for the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which grouped together sanctions against Iran, Russia and North Korea.

In May 2018, Mark Warner voted for Gina Haspel to be the next CIA director.

In December 2018, Mark Warner called Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei a threat to US national security.

In July 2019, Mark Warner was a cosponsor of the Defending America's 5G Future Act, a bill that would prevent Huawei from being removed from the Commerce Department's "entity list" without an act of Congress and authorize Congress to block administration waivers for US companies to do business with Huawei.

In 2011, Mark Warner voted for the four-year extension of the USA PATRIOT Act.

Also in 2012, Mark Warner pushed the Office of Personnel Management to address chronic backlogs in processing retirement benefits for federal workers, many of whom live in Washington's northern Virginia suburbs.

Mark Warner succeeded in pushing the Department of Veterans Affairs to expand access to PTSD treatment for female military veterans returning from service in Iraq and Afghanistan.

US Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus awarded Mark Warner the Distinguished Public Service Medal, the Navy's highest honor for a civilian, for his consistent support of Virginia's military families and veterans.

Between 2010 and 2013, Mark Warner invested considerable time and effort in leading the Senate's Gang of Six, along with Saxby Chambliss.

Chambliss and Mark Warner sought to craft a bipartisan plan along the lines of the Simpson-Bowles Commission to address US deficits and debt.

Mark Warner voted against the 2013 Assault Weapons Ban, but changed his position in a 2018 op-ed and has co-sponsored similar efforts since then.

In 2017, Mark Warner called himself a strong supporter of Second Amendment rights and vowed to advocate for responsible gun ownership for hunting, recreation, and self-defense.

In January 2019, Mark Warner was one of 40 senators to introduce the Background Check Expansion Act, a bill that would require background checks for either the sale or transfer of all firearms including all unlicensed sellers.

Mark Warner's announcement came shortly after Senator Claire McCaskill announced her support for it.

Mark Warner was a lead sponsor of the 2010 Government Performance and Results Act, which imposed specific program performance goals across all federal agencies and set up a more transparent agency performance review process.

On May 21,2013, Mark Warner introduced the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014.

Mark Warner expressed a willingness to negotiate with Republicans about some of the provisions of the bill, such as the timeline for the phase-in.

In October 2014, Mark Warner was implicated in a federal investigation of the 2014 resignation of Virginia State Senator Phillip Puckett, a Democrat.

BlackRock had never contributed until Mark Warner bought shares in the BlackRock Equity Dividend Fund in 2011.

Mark Warner spent two months in the hospital recovering from the illness.

Mark Warner is involved in farming and winemaking at his Rappahannock Bend farm.

Mark Warner has an estimated net worth of $257 million as of 2014.

Mark Warner is not related to John Warner, his predecessor in the Senate.

Mark Warner has been awarded several honorary degrees, these include:.