81 Facts About Richard Burr

Richard Mauze Burr was born on November 30,1955 and is an American businessman and politician who served as a United States senator from North Carolina from 2005 to 2023.

Richard Burr was first elected to the United States Senate in 2004.

Richard Burr temporarily stepped down as chair of the Intelligence Committee on May 15,2020, amid an FBI investigation into allegations of insider trading during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Richard Burr was one of seven Republican senators to vote to convict Donald Trump of incitement of insurrection in his second impeachment trial.

Richard Burr was born on November 30,1955, in Charlottesville, Virginia, the son of Martha and Rev David Horace White Richard Burr.

In college, Richard Burr played defensive back for the Wake Forest Demon Deacons football team.

In 1992, Burr ran against incumbent Representative Stephen L Neal for the seat in the Winston-Salem-based 5th District and lost.

Richard Burr ran again in 1994 after Neal chose not to seek reelection, and was elected in a landslide year for Republicans.

Richard Burr helped create the National Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering.

Richard Burr's amendment allowed exports of HEU to five countries for creating medical isotopes.

In July 2004, Richard Burr won the Republican primary for the US Senate seat vacated by John Edwards, who chose to not seek reelection while running for vice president as Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's running mate in the 2004 presidential election.

Richard Burr was sworn in to the Senate on January 4,2005.

Richard Burr was the first Republican since Jesse Helms to be reelected to the US Senate from North Carolina and the first incumbent senator from North Carolina receive a double-digit margin of victory since Sam Ervin's 1968 reelection.

Richard Burr's win represented the first time that North Carolina reelected a senator to this seat since Ervin's 1968 victory, leading Richard Burr to declare "the curse has been broken" on election night; Democrats and Republicans swapped control of the seat five times between 1968 and 2010.

Richard Burr was an advisor for Donald Trump's successful 2016 presidential campaign.

On July 20,2016, while campaigning for a third Senate term, Richard Burr announced that he would not seek a fourth term in 2022.

Richard Burr delivered a farewell address on the Senate floor on December 14,2022, and his final term expired on January 3,2023.

In 2007, Richard Burr ran for chair of the Senate Republican Conference, but lost to Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee by a vote of 31 to 16.

Richard Burr served as a member of the board of Brenner Children's Hospital and the West Point Board of Visitors.

Richard Burr opposed the DISCLOSE Act, which would have required political ads include information about who funded the ad.

Richard Burr supported the US Supreme Court decision Citizens United, which allowed political action committees to spend an unlimited amount of money during elections so long as they were not in direct coordination with candidates.

In 2009, in response to press about his experience, Richard Burr said that he would do the same thing again next time.

Richard Burr was a signatory of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, vowing to oppose to tax increases for any reason.

Richard Burr opposed raising taxes on businesses or high-income people to fund public services.

In 2013, Richard Burr criticized Senator Ted Cruz and other Republican colleagues for filibustering the passage of the fiscal year 2014 federal budget in an effort to defund the Affordable Care Act.

In March 2015, Richard Burr voted for an amendment to establish a deficit-neutral reserve fund to allow employees to earn paid sick time.

Richard Burr was one of 20 senators to vote against the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, a public land management and conservation bill.

Richard Burr supported renewal of the 1965 Land and Water Conservation Fund.

Richard Burr opposed regulations to limit greenhouse gas emissions, and opposed federal grants or subsidies to encourage the productions of renewable energy.

In 2013, Richard Burr voted for a measure expressing opposition to a federal tax or fee on carbon emissions.

Richard Burr voted in favor of the Keystone XL pipeline.

In 2017, Richard Burr voted to repeal the Stream Protection Rule as well as rules requiring energy companies to reduce waste, reduce emissions, and disclose payments from foreign governments.

Richard Burr supported lowering federal taxes on alternative fuels and the initiation of a hydropower project on the Yadkin River in Wilkes County, North Carolina.

In 2011, Richard Burr voted to abolish the EPA and merge it with the US Department of Energy.

Richard Burr typically voted against any increased funding for federal education projects, and in 2016 said he opposed increasing Pell Grants and other forms of student financial aid, including new subsidies aimed at helping students refinance their loans.

Richard Burr supported the goals of charter schools and supported legislation requiring public schools to allow school prayer.

Richard Burr voted for the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

Richard Burr supported President Bush's troop surge in Iraq in January 2007, saying that the effort to counter the insurgency would increase "security and stability" in Iraq.

In February 2020, Richard Burr voted against a measure restricting Trump from initiating military action against Iran without congressional approval.

In 2018 and 2019, Richard Burr opposed legislation to prohibit US arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and to end US military assistance to the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen.

In 2013, Richard Burr voted against gun control measures, including extended background checks to internet and gun show weapons purchases and an assault weapons ban.

Richard Burr sponsored legislation to stop the US Department of Veterans Affairs from adding the names of veterans to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System if the department had assigned a financial fiduciary to take care of the veteran's finances due to mental incompetence, unless a judge or magistrate deemed them a danger.

Richard Burr voted against Senator Dianne Feinstein's "no fly no buy" bill, but supported a Republican alternative measure written by Senator John Cornyn which proposed a 72-hour delay on gun sales to people whose names have been on a federal terror watch list within the past five years.

In 2022, Richard Burr was one of ten Republican senators to support a bipartisan agreement on gun control, which involved a red flag provision, a support for state crisis intervention orders, funding for school safety resources, stronger background checks for buyers under the age of 21, and penalties for straw purchases.

Richard Burr voted against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in December 2009, and against the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.

In 2012, Richard Burr co-sponsored a plan to overhaul Medicare; his bill would have raised the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67 over time and shifted more seniors to private insurance.

Richard Burr opposed legislation to allow the US Food and Drug Administration to regulate the tobacco industry, which is economically important in North Carolina, and unsuccessfully tried to filibuster the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009.

In 2018, Richard Burr voted in favor of legislation to ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Richard Burr supported parental notification laws and efforts to restrict federal funding of Planned Parenthood.

Richard Burr voted to define a pregnancy as carrying an "unborn child" from the moment of conception.

Richard Burr voted to prevent minors who have crossed state lines from getting an abortion, as well as to ensure parents are notified if their child does get an abortion.

Richard Burr voted to extend the federal prohibition on tax dollars being used for abortions by preventing the US Department of Health and Human Services from giving grants to any organization that performs abortions at any of its locations.

Richard Burr opposed the legalization of cannabis for both medical and recreational use.

Richard Burr stated that there should be greater enforcement of current anti-cannabis federal laws in all states, even when cannabis is legal as a matter of state law.

Richard Burr voted for the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010, the only Southern Republican senator to do so.

Richard Burr supported a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, but in 2013 said that he believed the law on same-sex marriage should be left to the states.

In 2015, Richard Burr was one of 11 Senate Republicans to vote in favor of allowing same-sex spouses to have access to federal Social Security and veterans' benefits.

Richard Burr voted to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act in 2013.

Richard Burr voted against earmarking money for programs aimed at reducing teen pregnancy He has stated he supports giving employers the right to restrict access to birth control coverage of employees if it is for moral reasons.

In December 2018, Richard Burr was one of 12 Republican senators to vote against the cloture motion on the First Step Act, a criminal justice reform measure altering federal sentencing laws, but ultimately voted for the law.

In 2022, Richard Burr was one of 12 Republican senators to vote in support of the Respect for Marriage Act.

In 2016, Richard Burr blocked consideration of Obama's nomination of Patricia Timmons-Goodson to fill an 11-year vacancy on US District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina.

Richard Burr expressed pride that his actions preventing Timmons-Goodson's confirmation created the longest federal court bench vacancy in US history.

Richard Burr voted to confirm Trump's Supreme Court nominees Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.

Two days before Christine Blasey Ford was scheduled to testify before the Senate, Richard Burr issued a statement supporting Kavanaugh's nomination despite her testimony.

In 2015, as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr proposed a five-year extension of the Patriot Act, which was set to expire in May 2015.

Richard Burr was a prominent advocate of retaining language in any reauthorizing legislation to allow the National Security Agency to continue bulk collection of metadata of private telephone records.

Ultimately, the Senate rejected controversial amendments in line with Richard Burr's proposals introduced by then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Congress passed the USA Freedom Act, signed into law in June 2015, which instead allowed the NSA to subpoena the data from telephone companies.

Richard Burr was a national security adviser to the Trump campaign.

Richard Burr stated that Trump "aligns perfectly" with the Republican Party.

Richard Burr opposed calling Trump's former National Security Adviser John Bolton as a witness at the Senate trial; Bolton had written that Trump had tied US security aid to Ukraine to the country's taking action against Biden.

Richard Burr voted to acquit Trump on the two charges of obstruction of Congress and abuse of power.

On February 9,2021, Richard Burr voted against the constitutionality of Trump's second impeachment trial.

In early February 2020, just before the COVID-19 market crash, Richard Burr sold more than $1.6 million of stock in 33 transactions during a period when, as head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, he was being briefed daily regarding potential health threats from COVID-19.

Richard Burr was sued by a shareholder for alleged STOCK Act violations.

Richard Burr was one of only three senators to oppose the STOCK Act of 2012, which prohibits members of Congress and congressional staff from using nonpublic information in securities trading.

On May 28,2021, Richard Burr abstained from voting on the creation of an independent commission to investigate the January 6 United States Capitol attack.

In 2025, Richard Burr introduced Tulsi Gabbard at her confirmation hearing to be Director of National Intelligence, his first visit to the Capitol since his term ended.

Richard Burr has a known aversion to reporters, once even climbing out of his office window while carrying his dry cleaning to avoid them.

Richard Burr has been married to Brooke Fauth Richard Burr, a real estate agent, since 1984, and they have two sons, Tyler and William.

Richard Burr is a distant relative of 19th century vice-president Aaron Burr, as a descendant of one of Aaron Burr's brothers.