53 Facts About Paul Wellstone

Paul David Wellstone was an American academic, author, and politician who represented Minnesota in the United States Senate from 1991 until he was killed in a plane crash near Eveleth, Minnesota, in 2002.

Paul Wellstone went on to graduate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a Bachelor's of Arts and a doctorate in political science.

In 1969, Paul Wellstone was hired as a professor at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, where he taught until his election to the Senate in 1990.

Paul Wellstone's campaign was unsuccessful, losing to Republican incumbent Arne Carlson.

Paul Wellstone challenged two-term Republican incumbent Rudy Boschwitz in the 1990 United States Senate election.

Paul Wellstone was widely seen as an underdog and was significantly outspent by Boschwitz.

Paul Wellstone was the only challenger in the country that year to defeat an incumbent senator.

Paul Wellstone notably authored the "Wellstone Amendment" for the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.

Paul Wellstone was born in Washington, DC, the second son of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants Leon and Minnie Paul Wellstone.

Paul Wellstone's father changed the family name from Wexelstein after encountering antisemitism during the 1930s.

Paul Wellstone attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on a wrestling scholarship.

Paul Wellstone graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in political science in 1965, and was elected Phi Beta Kappa.

In May 1969, Paul Wellstone earned a PhD in political science from UNC.

Paul Wellstone founded the Organization for a Better Rice County, a group consisting mainly of single parents on welfare.

Paul Wellstone was arrested twice during this period for civil disobedience.

In 1984 Paul Wellstone was arrested again, for trespassing during a foreclosure protest at a bank.

Paul Wellstone remains the youngest tenured faculty member in Carleton's history.

Paul Wellstone received the Democratic nomination for Minnesota State Auditor after an impassioned speech at the state convention.

Paul Wellstone served as an elected committeeman for the Democratic National Committee in 1984, and in 1986 began a second campaign for State Auditor before dropping out to tend his mother's failing health.

In 1988, Paul Wellstone chaired Jesse Jackson's campaign for the presidency in Minnesota.

In 1990, Paul Wellstone ran for the US Senate against incumbent Rudy Boschwitz, beginning the race as a serious underdog.

Paul Wellstone narrowly won the election despite being outspent 7 to 1.

Boschwitz was hurt by a letter his supporters wrote, on campaign stationery, to members of the Minnesota Jewish community days before the election, accusing Paul Wellstone of being a "bad Jew" for marrying a Gentile and not raising his children in the Jewish faith.

Paul Wellstone accused Wellstone of supporting flag burning, a move some believe backfired.

In 2002, Paul Wellstone campaigned for reelection to a third term despite an earlier campaign pledge to serve only two.

Paul Wellstone was in a line of center-left senators from the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.

Paul Wellstone was known for his work for peace, the environment, labor, and health care; he joined his wife Sheila to support the rights of victims of domestic violence.

Paul Wellstone made the issue of mental illness a central focus in his career.

Paul Wellstone was a supporter of immigration to the US Paul Wellstone opposed the first Gulf War in 1991 and, in the months before his death, spoke out against the government's threats to go to war with Iraq again.

Paul Wellstone later asked his supporters to educate him on the issue and by 2001, when he wrote his autobiography, Conscience of a Liberal, Wellstone admitted that he had made a mistake.

Paul Wellstone was one of only eight members of the Senate to vote against repealing the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999.

The Green Party's decision to oppose Paul Wellstone was criticized by some liberals.

Paul Wellstone was the author of the "Paul Wellstone Amendment" to the McCain-Feingold Bill for campaign finance reform, in what came to be known as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.

The law, including the Paul Wellstone Amendment, was called unconstitutional by groups and individuals of various political perspectives, including the California Democratic Party, the National Rifle Association, and Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Whip.

Shortly after his reelection to the Senate in 1996, Paul Wellstone began contemplating a run for his party's nomination for President of the United States in 2000.

Paul Wellstone intended to retrace the steps Robert F Kennedy took during a similar tour in 1966, and to highlight the fact that conditions had improved slightly for African-Americans since the civil rights movement, but not much for poor whites despite their dependency on food stamps, government jobs and the massive federal investment in their regions, especially Appalachia.

In 1998, Paul Wellstone formed an exploratory committee and a leadership PAC, the Progressive Politics Network, that paid for his travels to Iowa and New Hampshire, two early primary states in the nomination process.

On January 9,1999, Paul Wellstone called a press conference at the Minnesota State Capitol at which he said he lacked the stamina necessary for a national campaign, citing chronic back problems he ascribed to an old wrestling injury.

Paul Wellstone thereafter endorsed former Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey, the only Democratic candidate to challenge Vice President Al Gore.

Paul Wellstone voted against authorizing the use of force before the Persian Gulf War on January 12,1991.

Paul Wellstone voted against the use of force before the Iraq War on October 11,2002.

Paul Wellstone was one of 11 senators to vote against both the 1991 and 2002 resolutions.

Paul Wellstone supported requests for military action by President Bill Clinton, including Operation Restore Hope in Somalia, Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti, Operation Deliberate Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Operation Desert Fox in Iraq, and Operation Allied Force in Yugoslavia.

On July 1,1994, during the 100-day Rwandan genocide from April 6 to mid-July 1994, Paul Wellstone authored an amendment to the 1995 defense appropriations bill.

The airplane was en route to Eveleth, where Paul Wellstone was to attend the funeral of Martin Rukavina, a steelworker whose son Tom Rukavina served in the Minnesota House of Representatives.

Paul Wellstone decided to go to the funeral instead of a Minneapolis rally and fundraiser attended by Mondale and fellow Senator Ted Kennedy.

Paul Wellstone was to debate Norm Coleman in Duluth, Minnesota, that night.

Paul Wellstone had been receiving death threats since he took office; the FBI tapped his phone to locate the callers.

Documents about the FBI's involvement in investigating Paul Wellstone's death were not publicly released until October 2010.

That's the same direction Paul Wellstone's plane was heading when it crashed.

Paul Wellstone had two previous piloting jobs, one with Skydive Hutchinson as a pilot, and another with Northwest Airlines as a trainee instructor, and was dismissed from both for lack of ability.

Paul and Sheila Wellstone were buried at Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis, the same cemetery in which Vice President Hubert H Humphrey is interred.

In 2007, former First Lady Rosalynn Carter joined David Paul Wellstone to push Congress to pass legislation regarding mental health insurance.