60 Facts About Richard Shelby

Richard Craig Shelby was born on May 6,1934 and is an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Alabama from 1987 to 2023.

Richard Shelby previously chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Senate Banking Committee, and the Senate Rules Committee.

Richard Shelby was the longest-serving US senator from Alabama, surpassing John Sparkman's record in March 2019.

Richard Shelby went on to serve as city prosecutor from 1963 to 1971.

Richard Shelby won a seat in the Alabama Senate in 1970.

In 1986, Richard Shelby won a tight race as a Democrat for the US Senate.

In 1994, the day after the Republican Revolution in which the GOP gained the majority in Congress midway through President Bill Clinton's first term, Richard Shelby switched parties and became a Republican.

Richard Shelby was reelected by a large margin in 1998, facing no significant electoral opposition thereafter.

In February 2021, Richard Shelby announced that he would not seek reelection in 2022.

Richard Shelby graduated in 1953 from Hueytown High School in Hueytown, Alabama, then the University of Alabama, receiving an undergraduate degree in 1957.

Richard Shelby was admitted to the Alabama State Bar on August 29,1961.

Richard Shelby is a member of the American Bar Association, the Alabama State Bar, the American Judicature Society, Alabama Law Institute, Delta Chi fraternity, and Phi Alpha Delta legal fraternity.

Richard Shelby was a city prosecutor in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, from 1963 to 1971.

Richard Shelby was elected to the Alabama Senate in 1970 and served until 1979.

Richard Shelby was one of the more conservative Democrats in Congress, and a member of the boll weevils, a group of moderate to conservative-leaning Democrats who often worked with President Ronald Reagan on defense issues.

Richard Shelby won a very close race as the Democrats regained control of the Senate.

Richard Shelby was easily reelected even as Bill Clinton lost Alabama's electoral votes.

Richard Shelby won his first full term as a Republican in 1998 by a large margin.

Richard Shelby faced no significant opposition and was reelected to a fifth term.

In 2014, The Wall Street Journal criticized Richard Shelby for hoarding campaign and PAC contributions and not sharing them with colleagues.

In 1987, Richard Shelby opposed Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court, a move attributed to lobbying by Alabama African-American leaders who reminded Richard Shelby that he had relied on support from black voters in narrowly defeating Denton in 1986.

In 1991, Richard Shelby sponsored legislation granting federal recognition to the MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians.

Richard Shelby publicly feuded with President Bill Clinton during the first half of Clinton's first term.

Richard Shelby served on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence from 1995 to 2003, stepping down because of a Senate rule limiting committee terms to eight years.

Richard Shelby took an adversarial stance toward the intelligence community during both the Clinton and Bush administrations.

Richard Shelby helped sink Anthony Lake's nomination as CIA director in 1997 and promised to investigate the use of American-made satellites by the Chinese to gather intelligence.

Richard Shelby took a hard line on leaks of classified information.

Richard Shelby confirmed afterward that he intended to vote for Greenspan for another term as Federal Reserve Chair and said that Greenspan was not opposed to his suggestion to cut the discount rate to its lowest in 20 years in addition to agreeing with him on the need for a restoration of investment tax credits and a special tax rate for capital gains along with the providing of incentives to encourage savings.

On February 12,1999, Richard Shelby was one of 50 senators to vote to convict and remove Bill Clinton from office.

Richard Shelby lost his chairmanships in 2007 when Democrats regained control of the Senate.

In 2004, a federal investigation concluded that Richard Shelby revealed classified information to the media while a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Richard Shelby is the Senate co-chair of the National Security Caucus and a member of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Senate Centrist Coalition.

In February 2010, Richard Shelby placed a hold on more than 70 of Obama's nominees to various government posts, in a protest over an Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker contract and the FBI's Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center.

Richard Shelby has decided to release his holds on all but a few nominees directly related to the Air Force tanker acquisition until the new Request for Proposal is issued.

In May 2011, Richard Shelby was one of five Republicans to vote against a Republican bill expanding offshore oil and gas drilling in US coastal waters and requiring the Interior Department to complete multiple offshore lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coasts of Virginia and Alaska.

In March 2015, Richard Shelby announced the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee would "review proposals aimed at providing greater clarity in Fed decision-making and at reforming the composition of Federal Reserve System" and that he had asked for input from the original regional reserve bank presidents for the Federal Reserve.

In September 2018, Richard Shelby reported that the House and Senate were close to a deal on a third package of spending bills for 2019.

In February 2019, after Trump delivered the 2019 State of the Union Address, Richard Shelby called it a reiteration of Trump's support for the US-Mexico border wall and confirmed an interaction with House Appropriations Committee chair Nita Lowey, a leading Democratic negotiator.

In September 2020, with less than two months left in the presidential election, Richard Shelby supported an immediate Senate vote on Trump's nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy caused by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death.

When Congress reconvened to certify the 2021 United States Electoral College vote count, Richard Shelby voted to accept the results of the election.

On February 13,2021, Richard Shelby voted to acquit Trump of inciting the Capitol attack.

Richard Shelby has a lifetime ideology score of 77.43 from the politically conservative American Conservative Union's Center for Legislative Accountability.

In 2010, Richard Shelby initially opposed the Republican Party's moratorium on earmark funding.

In 2011, Richard Shelby opposed the nomination of Nobel Economics Prize laureate and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Peter Diamond to the board of the Federal Reserve on the grounds that Diamond "lacked the necessary qualifications".

Since becoming Senate Banking chair, Richard Shelby has made "regulatory relief and financial regulation reform his top priority".

In May 2015, he revealed the so-called Richard Shelby Bill, easing regulatory restrictions on smaller banks and increasing scrutiny of the Federal Reserve.

In May 2015, Richard Shelby introduced legislation that if enacted would increase congressional scrutiny of the Federal Reserve and ease some regulatory burdens on multiple small banks and loosen oversight to banks such as US Bancorp and SunTrust Banks enacted under the Dodd-Frank Act.

Richard Shelby voted to make English the sole language of the federal government.

In 1999, Richard Shelby was one of ten Republican senators to vote to acquit President Bill Clinton on the charge of perjury when Clinton was tried in the Senate in 1999, but he voted to convict Clinton of obstruction of justice.

In March 2015, Richard Shelby was one of 47 Republican senators to sign a letter to Iran warning that a nuclear deal with the US would have to first be approved by Congress.

In December 2010, Richard Shelby was one of 26 senators to vote against the ratification of New Start, a nuclear arms reduction treaty between the US and the Russian Federation obliging both countries to have no more than 1,550 strategic warheads as well as 700 launchers deployed during the next seven years along with providing a continuation of on-site inspections that halted when START I expired the previous year.

In March 2018, Richard Shelby voted to table a resolution spearheaded by Bernie Sanders, Chris Murphy, and Mike Lee that would have required Trump to withdraw American troops either in or influencing Yemen in the next 30 days unless they were combating Al-Qaeda.

Richard Shelby has an A+ rating from the National Rifle Association for his support of gun rights.

In January 2019, Richard Shelby was one of 31 Republican senators to cosponsor the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, a bill introduced by John Cornyn and Ted Cruz that would grant individuals with concealed carry privileges in their home state the right to exercise this right in any other state with concealed carry laws while concurrently abiding by that state's laws.

Richard Shelby opposed Obama's health reform legislation, voting against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in December 2009 and against the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.

Richard Shelby voted for a 1994 moratorium on certain forms of immigration.

Richard Shelby has supported development of the Space Launch System, but disagreed with how funds for the program have been spent.

Richard Shelby cites disagreements with Democrats on tax policy as one of the main reasons he became a Republican; he feels the Democrats are too willing to enact tax increases.

Richard Shelby is a signer of Americans for Tax Reform's Taxpayer Protection Pledge.

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