| Revision as of 05:40, 15 February 2006 editAjdz (talk | contribs)1,584 edits →Recent developments: added Coleman's staff's position on editing the open encyclopedia - it could use a direct quote← Previous edit | Revision as of 13:12, 15 February 2006 edit undoVanished user svinet8j3ogifm98wjfgoi3tjosfg (talk | contribs)2,181 edits revert removal of coleman's anti-abortion position (please don't mark this type of edit as minor)Next edit → | ||
| Line 37: | Line 37: | ||
| ===Positions on abortion and stem-cell research=== | ===Positions on abortion and stem-cell research=== | ||
| Sen. Coleman currently identifies himself as being ]. At one time he was ], but he has campaigned as pro-life since at least 1993 (Star Tribune, March 8, 1993, "Mayoral hopeful pits self against the city's DFL establishment"). Coleman attributes his position on abortion to the death of two of his four children in infancy from ], a rare ]. Coleman is a member of the ]. He supports stem cell research, but only using adult stem cells and stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood. | Sen. Coleman currently identifies himself as being ] – he universally opposes ]. At one time he was ], but he has campaigned as pro-life since at least 1993 (Star Tribune, March 8, 1993, "Mayoral hopeful pits self against the city's DFL establishment"). Coleman attributes his position on abortion to the death of two of his four children in infancy from ], a rare ]. Coleman is a member of the ]. He supports stem cell research, but only using adult stem cells and stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood. | ||
| ===Position on gay rights issues=== | ===Position on gay rights issues=== | ||
Revision as of 13:12, 15 February 2006
See Norman Jay Coleman for the former secretary of Agriculture.| Norm Coleman | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Junior Senator, Minnesota | |
| In office January 2003–Present | |
| Preceded by | Dean Barkley |
| Succeeded by | Incumbent (2009) |
| Personal details | |
| Nationality | american |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse | Laurie Coleman |
Norman Bertram "Norm" Coleman Jr. (born August 17 1949) is an American politician and a member of the Republican Party. He has been a U.S. Senator from Minnesota since 2003. He will be up for re-election in 2008. His wife, Laurie Coleman, is an aspiring actress. They have two children, Jacob and Sarah.
Born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York, Coleman received his Bachelor of Arts from Hofstra University and law degree with high honors from the University of Iowa. He spent 17 years with the Office of the Minnesota Attorney General, holding the positions of chief prosecutor and solicitor general of the State of Minnesota. He was mayor of Saint Paul, Minnesota from 1994 to 2002. Previously a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, Coleman switched to the Republican Party of Minnesota in 1996. In 1998, he unsuccessfully ran for governor of Minnesota against the DFL candidate Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III and the victorious Independence Party (then known as the Reform Party of Minnesota) candidate, Jesse Ventura.
2002 Senate election
Coleman campaigned in 2002 for the United States Senate, after being persuaded by Karl Rove not to run again for governor. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2002, narrowly defeating former Vice President Walter Mondale, who only entered the race within days of the election after Sen. Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash. Coleman succeeded Dean Barkley, who was appointed by Governor Jesse Ventura to serve the remainder of Wellstone's term.
Coleman in the Senate
Coleman is a member of four Senate committees including the Committee on Foreign Relations, the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee, and the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. He is also Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. In 2004 Coleman campaigned for the chairmanship of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (N.R.S.C.), but was narrowly defeated for the post by North Carolina Senator Elizabeth Dole in a close 28-27 vote. Coleman's Northstar Leadership PAC made over $200,000 worth of contributions to other Republican senators that were up for reelection during his failed campaign for the NRSC chair.
Coleman's politics
Coleman's politics have changed dramatically throughout his political career. In college, Coleman was a liberal Democrat and was actively involved in the anti-war movement of the early 1970s. He was once suspended from Hofstra College for participating in a sit-in protest against the 1970 shootings at Kent State. When first elected mayor of the City of Saint Paul in 1993, Coleman was a DFLer and considered left-of-center politically, but gradually shifted to much more conservative positions on many issues during his tenure.
In December 1996, Coleman announced he was leaving the DFL party and to become a Republican, he said that his conservative views on abortion and homosexuality were a factor in his party switch. Some of Coleman's critics in Minnesota speculated that his switch was motivated by his known aspirations for state-wide office -- something that would be very difficult considering the bad blood between him and DFL party leaders. Coleman was re-elected in 1997 despite being a Republican in an overwhelmingly Democratic city. Coleman's current political positions generally range from centrist to conservative.
Ironically, prior to becoming a Republican, Coleman chaired Paul Wellstone's 1996 Senate re-election campaign. While making the Wellstone nomination speech at the 1996 State Convention Coleman stated, "Paul Wellstone is a Democrat, and I am a Democrat." At this point in time, tensions were so high between Coleman and the DFL party that a number of delegates at the convention were loudly booing Coleman's speech. Wellstone's campaign used portions of that speech against Coleman in a humorous television advertisement in 2002, asking voters rhetorically at the end, "Can we ever really trust Norm Coleman?"
Positions on abortion and stem-cell research
Sen. Coleman currently identifies himself as being pro-life – he universally opposes abortion rights. At one time he was pro-choice, but he has campaigned as pro-life since at least 1993 (Star Tribune, March 8, 1993, "Mayoral hopeful pits self against the city's DFL establishment"). Coleman attributes his position on abortion to the death of two of his four children in infancy from Zellweger syndrome, a rare genetic disease. Coleman is a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership. He supports stem cell research, but only using adult stem cells and stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood.
Position on gay rights issues
Coleman opposes the legal recognition of same-sex marriages or civil unions by either the federal or state governments.
- As mayor of St. Paul, Coleman voted against an effort to repeal a city law which prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation.
- Coleman later refused to sign a city proclamation celebrating the annual gay pride festival.
- While running for Governor of Minnesota in 1998, Coleman's campaign ran radio ads that attacked his DFL opponent Skip Humphrey for his support of same-sex marriage.
- In his 2002 Senate campaign, Coleman pledged support for a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution that would ban any state from recognizing either same-sex marriage or similar civil unions.
- In 2004, Coleman voted to end a bi-partisan filibuster on that proposed amendment to the Constitution (Senate vote 155, July 14, 2004). While a majority of Senators voted with Coleman, they were unable to secure the 60 votes needed to end the debate, so a vote on the amendment itself was never held.
Ties to the George W. Bush administration
Critics of Coleman in Minnesota argue that he campaigned on using bi-partisan efforts to "get things done" in the Senate, but in his first year in office he voted with President Bush's position on bills 98 percent of the time (according to Congressional Quarterly statistics).
Coleman became the lead Senate Republican defender of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove amid allegations of him illegally leaking the name of a covert CIA operative. Rove reportedly convinced Coleman on behalf of the Bush Administration to seek a Senate seat in 2002 instead of running again for governor of Minnesota.
In December 2005, Coleman voted for a budget bill that cut funding from a number of programs, but kept funding for sugar beet farmers in Minnesota after Rove advocated the change. Coleman told Congress Daily that he wouldn't vote for a bill that cut sugarbeet funding but "Karl Rove called me and asked what I wanted. A few hours later it was out of the bill."
Position on CAFTA free trade agreement
Senator Coleman expressed reservations about supporting CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement) unless the interests of the domestic U.S. sugar industry (including Minnesota's sugar beet industry) were accommodated. He voted in favor of CAFTA after obtaining quotas imposed on foreign sugar until 2008. He stood behind President Bush on August 2, 2005, as the trade agreement was signed into law.
Position on drilling in ANWR
On December 21, 2005, Senator Coleman voted to end debate on a defense appropriations bill that included oil exploitation in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) after having pledged in 2002 to oppose such drilling. He stated that he did so because although he planned to vote against the bill, he didn't believe that a filibuster was warranted. The filibuster held, however, and Coleman voted to strip the ANWR provision from the bill in a subsequent vote.
Investigations Subcommittee and Galloway Testimony
In December 2004, in connection with his position of Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Coleman called for United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan to resign because of the "UN's utter failure to detect or stop Saddam's abuses" in the UN's Oil-for-Food program and because of fraud allegations against Annan's son relating to the same program. In May 2005 Coleman's subcommittee held hearings on their investigation of abuses of the UN Oil-for-Food program, including oil smuggling, illegal kickbacks and use of surcharges, and Saddam Hussein's use of oil vouchers for the purpose of buying influence abroad. These hearings covered certain corporations, several well-known political figures, but are much remembered for the appearance of British Member of Parliament George Galloway in which the MP responded forcefully to the allegations.
"We have your name on Iraqi documents, some prepared before the fall of Saddam, some after, that identify you as one of the allocation holders," Coleman accused. "I am not now nor have I ever been an oil trader" retorted Galloway, stating that the charges were false and part of a diversionary "smoke screen" by pro-Iraq war U.S. politicians to deflect attention from the "theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth... on your watch" that had occurred not during the Oil-for-Food program but under the post-invasion Coalition Provisional Authority by "Haliburton and other American corporations... with the connivance of your own government." Galloway claimed that the subcommittee's dossier was full of distortions and rudimentary mistakes, citing, for example, the charge that he had met with Saddam Hussein "many times" when the number was two. This unusual appearance of a British MP before a US Senate committee drew much media attention in both America and Britain.
The Majority Staff of the subcomittee prepared a subsequent report pertaining to Galloway which was released in October, 2005. It elaborates on the allegations and evidence of the committee and includes disputed testimony from former Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz. It also alleges that another officer of Mariam Appeal, Galloway's then-wife, received $150,000 in oil kickbacks, which she denies.
Recent developments
In February 2006, Coleman co-chaired along with Senator Mark Pryor the National Prayer Breakfast, a political event sponsored annually by the Christian political group The Fellowship Foundation. Coleman read Hebrew prayers, and was followed in speaking by King Abdullah II of Jordan and musician Bono.
On January 30, 2006, it was reported that Norm Coleman's staff had been actively editing his (this) entry on Misplaced Pages, removing critical references to his voting record and revising the description of his former political leanings. Similar instances of edits to several senators' pages originating from Congressional IP addresses have occurred. Coleman's chief of staff "said the editing was done to correct inaccuracies and delete information that was not reflective of Coleman."
Coleman is currently chairing a committee investigating the Australian Wheat Board for sanctions busting and kickbacks to Saddam Husseins's regime under the UN's Oil-for-Food Programme.
On February 10, 2006 during Senate committee testimony of former FEMA director Michael D. Brown in time allotted for questioning, Coleman accused Brown of poor leadership during Hurricane Katrina disaster relief efforts, "you didn't provide the leadership, even with structural infirmities." Brown responded combatively, "well, Senator, that's very easy for you to say sitting behind that dais and not being there in the middle of that disaster..." and implored Coleman to stick to questions. Brown had recently stated that he notified Department of Homeland Security and the White House of the tremendous scale of Katrina flooding earlier than had been previously reported.
Electoral history
- 2002 Race for U.S. Senate
- Norm Coleman (R), 49.53%
- Walter Mondale (DFL), 47.34%
- 1998 Race for Governor
- Jesse Ventura (Ref.), 37%
- Norm Coleman (R), 34%
- Hubert H. Humphrey III (DFL), 28%
- 1997 Race for Mayor (St. Paul, MN)
- Norm Coleman (R) (inc.), 59%
- Sandy Pappas (DFL), 41%
- 1993 Race for Mayor (St. Paul, MN)
- Norm Coleman (DFL), 55%
- Andy Dawkins (DFL), 44%
External links
- U.S. Senate Website
- Campaign Website
- Norm Coleman on the Issues
- Coleman Staff Makes Changes To Misplaced Pages Bio
- A satirical site critical of Coleman's ties to the Bush Administration
| Preceded byJames A. Scheibel | Mayor of St. Paul 1994–2002 |
Succeeded byRandy Kelly |
| Preceded byDean Barkley | United States Senator (Class 1) from Minnesota 2003– Served alongside: Mark Dayton |
Succeeded byIncumbent |
| Minnesota's current delegation to the United States Congress | |
|---|---|
| Senators |
|
| Representatives (ordered by district) |
|
| Current United States senators | ||
|---|---|---|
| President: ▌ Kamala Harris (D) ‧ President pro tempore: ▌ Chuck Grassley (R) | ||
|  | |
| ||