The United States Senate is often considered the most exclusive club in the country, a club in which mere membership generally puts you on the short list for the Leadership of the Free World.
Outside of presidential elections, U.S. Senate races are far and away the most prominent electoral races in the United States, and the office is probably the most powerful elected office in the nation short of the Presidency, particularly given the absence of term limits (which frequently constrain state governors).
It's generally perceived that the Senate takes most of its membership from graduates of the lower Congressional body, the House of Representatives. This is often the case - former House members make up the great plurality of the Senate's current membership.
Interestingly, though, there are several other paths to the top of the heap in U.S. politics. The political resumes of Senate members almost exclusively break down into one of these categories:
• Governors
• Statewide elected officials serving in some office below that of Governor
• U.S. Representatives
• State legislators
• Big-city Mayors.
• Political "celebrities"
• Law-enforcement figures (DA's, US Attorneys, etc)
• Presidential administration officials
• Rich people looking to buy a seat
• "Other" - city councilmen, state party chairs, university professors, etc.
So how often do state legislators actually get elected to the U.S. Senate? How many big-city Mayors get elected to the Senate on their first try?
And how long does your average Congressman stick around in the House before jumping to the Senate?
We have all that information below. Here's a list of the political resume of every member of the United States Senate over the last decade, sorted by category.
In some cases there's some overlap. Here are the rules used:
• Service as a state legislator is only listed if it's the highest qualification a particular Senator had. In other words, if you were a State Senator elected to the U.S. House and subsequently to the Senate, you'll be listed as a member of the House.
• People who were elected statewide to some non-gubernatorial position, and subsequently as Governor, like Evan Bayh, will only be listed as Governors.
• On the other hand, former Governors who went to serve in a Presidential administration (Mike Johanns, Lamar Alexander) will be listed as both.
• The same goes with U.S. Reps who served as Governor, or in some statewide capacity, prior to serving in the Senate, like Bill Nelson and Judd Gregg.
Without further ado, let's check the list. (below the fold!)
Former Governors
Current Senators
Lamar Alexander*
Evan Bayh
Kit Bond
Tom Carper
Judd Gregg*
Mike Johanns*
Ben Nelson
Jim Risch*
Jay Rockefeller
Jeanne Shaheen
George Voinovich
Mark Warner
Ex-Senators
George Allen*
John Ashcroft
Richard Bryan
Mel Carnahan*
John Chafee
Bob Graham
Fritz Hollings
Bob Kerrey
Zell Miller
Chuck Robb
Strom Thurmond
Serving as Governor has always been considered a springboard to the Senate or Presidency, and that's still true. This is probably considered the easiest and most reliable springboard to the Senate, which is logical; if voters will trust you with the top job in the state, they ought to trust you in Washington.
In fact, there are a number of folks who have gone the other way in recent history, like Jon Corzine, Frank Murkowski and Dirk Kempthorne.
Some notes on these guys: Risch was never actually elected Governor; he ascended to the position after Kempthorne was appointed to be Interior Secretary. He ran for Lieutenant Governor again in 2006, as Rep. Butch Otter was already the frontrunner for the Governorship, but was subsequently elected to the Senate in 2008.
Carnahan never actually served in the Senate, but he technically won the election in 2000. It seems more fair to list him than not; his wife Jean (who was appointed to fill his seat after Carnahan’s posthumous election) is listed under "political celebrities".
Allen and Gregg also served in the U.S. House prior to being elected Governor. Alexander and Johanns got Cabinet positions following their own service.
Statewide Elected Officials
Current Senators
Jeff Bingaman – Attorney General
Roland Burris – AG, Secretary of State
Sherrod Brown – former Secretary of State
Robert Casey Jr. – State Treasurer
Kent Conrad – State Tax Commissioner
John Cornyn – Attorney General
Byron Dorgan – former State Tax Commissioner*
Kay Bailey Hutchison – State Treasurer
John Kerry – Lieutenant Governor
Mary Landrieu – State Treasurer
Joe Lieberman – Attorney General
Claire McCaskill – State Auditor
Bill Nelson – Treasurer (now CFO)*
Mark Pryor – Attorney General
Jim Risch – Lieutenant Governor*
Jeff Sessions – Attorney General
Tom Udall – former Attorney General*
Sheldon Whitehouse – Attorney General
Ex-Senators
Max Cleland – Secretary of State
Mark Dayton – State Auditor
Mike DeWine – Lieutenant Governor
Slade Gorton – Attorney General
Ken Salazar – Attorney General
This particular path to the Senate has become increasingly popular in recent years, though it's always been viable. After the House, it is now the most popular path to the Senate.
DeWine, Dorgan, Nelson and Tom Udall all served in the House at one point; for Udall and Dorgan, it was after serving statewide, but beforehand for Nelson and DeWine.
Attorney General is the most popular springboard (people love law ‘n order candidates), but certainly not the only one.
Big City Mayors
Current Senators
Mark Begich (Anchorage)
Bob Corker (Chattanooga)
Dianne Feinstein (San Francisco)
Richard Lugar (Indianapolis)
Ex-Senators
Lincoln Chafee (Warwick)
Norm Coleman (St Paul)
Pete Domenici (Albuquerque, sort of)
Albuquerque didn’t have a mayor in Domenici’s day; he was City Commission Chairman, a position similar to that of mayor, but selected internally by the commission instead of being popularly elected. So he was somewhere between being a City Councilor and an actual mayor.
Notably, with the exception of Chafee (who was appointed to the Senate) and Begich, all of these folks lost their first bids for statewide office.
Feinstein lost a 1990 race for Governor of California to Senator Pete Wilson (and won the subsequent special election for Wilson’s seat). Corker lost the 1994 primary for U.S. Senate to Bill Frist (and won the seat 12 years later). Lugar lost a 1974 bid for Senate to Birch Bayh (Evan Bayh’s dad). Coleman lost a 1998 bid for Governor of Minnesota (to Jesse Ventura) and Domenici lost a 1970 bid for Governor of New Mexico (to Democrat Bruce King).
Begich is the only non-appointee to win election to the Senate on his first try statewide.
Law Enforcement (non-Attorneys General)
Amy Klobuchar (Hennepin County Attorney)
Patrick Leahy (Chittenden County State’s Attorney)
Arlen Specter (Philadelphia District Attorney)
A lot of law-enforcement figures usually stop off somewhere on their way to the Senate (House, AG, Governor), but these three did not. A background in law enforcement or prosecution is generally a major asset for a candidate, so perhaps we will see more DAs, US Attorneys, and the like running for high office over the next few years.
This doesn't seem like a high number, but as you can see, a lot of Attorneys General do make the jump.
Political Celebrities
Current Senators
Bob Bennett (son of US Senator Wallace Bennett, grandson of LDS President)
Al Franken (entertainer, author, political activist)
Ted Kennedy (brother of President John F. Kennedy)
Ex-Senators
Jean Carnahan (First Lady of Missouri)
Hillary Rodham Clinton (First Lady of the United States)
Fred Thompson (actor, attorney)
There are a lot of people who could have been added to this list because of famous political family members, like Chris Dodd, Elizabeth Dole, Lincoln Chafee or Lisa Murkowski, so I limited the list to people who had never held elected office before joining the Senate.
This list is pretty self-explanatory; people who haven’t held political office, and aren’t necessarily rich self-funders, but have famous names, particularly in a political context.
Rich People
Current Senators
Frank Lautenberg
Herb Kohl
Ex-Senators
Jon Corzine
John Edwards
Bill Frist
Chuck Hagel
Frank Murkowski
This is a particularly difficult category, because a lot of U.S. Senators are very wealthy. We limited this one to people who hadn’t held elected office, but a lot of other people could have qualified, like Ted Kennedy, Maria Cantwell, Slade Gorton, Gordon Smith, Bob Kerrey, and so forth...
Many of these folks were somewhat politically active before running for office. Lautenberg was the Port Authority Executive Commissioner, while Hagel was a Hill staffer in the ‘70s, worked on the Reagan campaign, served as deputy VA administrator, and worked with quite a number of NGOs and nonprofits before running for the Senate.
Murkowski ran for the U.S. House in 1970, but lost to Mark Begich’s father, Nick Begich. Now their children serve alongside one another in the U.S. Senate.
Corzine is sort of the poster boy for this category; he’s spent untold amounts of his own money to win a Senate race and a Gov race in the past ten years.
A lot of rich businessmen run for the Senate every cycle. Sometimes one of them wins, but it doesn't happen all that often.
Administration Officials
Current Senators
Lamar Alexander – Education Secretary
Susan Collins – Regional SBA Director for New England
Mike Johanns – Agriculture Secretary
Mel Martinez – HUD Secretary
Jim Webb – Secretary of the Navy, Assistant Secretary of Defense
Ex-Senators
Paul Coverdell – Peace Corps Director
Elizabeth Dole – Transportation Secretary, Labor Secretary
Daniel Patrick Moynihan – Asst. Labor Secretary, UN Ambassador
John Warner – Secretary of the Navy
Collins’ political bio is actually one of the thinnest for current US Senators. She earned her stripes serving as deputy state treasurer and New England SBA director under Bush. She made her political name, however, in an unsuccessful 1994 bid for Governor. She and incumbent Democrat Joe Brennan both lost to independent Angus King, but she performed fairly well; she subsequently beat Brennan in a special election for the Senate in 1996.
Alexander and Johanns both served as Governor prior to joining Republican administrations.
Moynihan is one of the few to serve in both Democratic and Republican administrations. Dole could have been listed in a bunch of categories (political celebrity, or "other" given her work with the American Red Cross, her last job before running for the Senate). This one seemed most accurate.
State Legislators
(H denotes former member of the State House or Assembly, S denotes a former State Senator)
Current Senators
John Barrasso (S)
Mike Enzi (S)
Russ Feingold (S)
Kay Hagan (S)
Jeff Merkley (H)
Lisa Murkowski (H)
Patty Murray (S)
Jon Tester (S)
Ex-Senators
Peter Fitzgerald (S)
Don Nickles (S)
Barack Obama (S)
Gordon Smith (S)
Ted Stevens (H)
It’s certainly possible to jump all the way from the State House to the Senate – our current President did it, as did several others – but it’s not necessarily frequent. It has happened four times in the past two cycles, though (Barrasso, Hagan, Merkley and Tester).
Former US Senators
Kent Conrad
Frank Lautenberg
Slade Gorton
Just for fun, three guys who were in the Senate, retired or were defeated, and came back.
Gorton was particularly fun; elected in 1980, defeated in 1986, elected again in 1988, reelected in 1994 (thanks, landslide!) and beaten for good in 2000 by Maria Cantwell.
Conrad had said in his first Senate campaign that he would retire if the budget were not balanced by the end of his first term. It wasn’t, and he did, but near the end of his first term in 1992, the state’s other Senator died, and Conrad ran in the special election to succeed him (and won).
Other
Current Senators
Michael Bennet – Denver Superintendent of Public Schools
Orrin Hatch – attorney
Ted Kaufman – Chief of Staff to US Sen. Joe Biden
Carl Levin – Detroit City Councilor
Mitch McConnell – Jefferson County Judge/Executive
Ex-Senators
Spencer Abraham – Michigan party chair, NRCC co-chair
Dean Barkley – MN cabinet official
Joe Biden – New Castle County Councilman
Conrad Burns – Yellowstone County Councilman
Jesse Helms – Raleigh City Councilman
Paul Wellstone – university professor
This is where many of the biggest upsets in Senate history live – largely guys who ran theoretically kamikaze campaigns, but turned out to be far better candidates than anyone had anticipated.
There are a lot of legendary stories here, like Biden coming out of nowhere to win in 1972 on a shoestring budget, Levin knocking off the Republican Minority Leader, Robert Griffin, in 1978, Helms’ exploiting the Greek ancestry of his opponent in classic Jesse Helms style to help ride Nixon’s coattails to victory, and Wellstone’s phenomenal, out-of-nowhere defeat of incumbent Rudy Boschwitz in 1990.
Finally, the big enchilada:
Former US Reps.
We've listed the length of time each Rep spent in the House before jumping to the Senate. It's pretty surprising.
Daniel Akaka (7 terms)
Max Baucus (2 terms)
Barbara Boxer (5 terms)
Sherrod Brown (7 terms)
Sam Brownback (1 term)
Jim Bunning (6 terms)
Richard Burr (5 terms)
Robert Byrd (3 terms)
Maria Cantwell (1 term)
Ben Cardin (10 terms)
Saxby Chambliss (4 terms)
Tom Coburn (3 terms)
Thad Cochran (3 terms)
Mike Crapo (3 terms)
Jim DeMint (3 term)
Chris Dodd (3 terms)
Byron Dorgan* (6 terms)
Dick Durbin (7 terms)
John Ensign (2 terms)
Kirsten Gillibrand (1 term and change)
Lindsey Graham (4 terms)
Chuck Grassley (3 terms)
Tom Harkin (5 terms)
James Inhofe (4 terms)
Daniel Inouye (2 terms)
Johnny Isakson (2 full terms and change)
Tim Johnson (5 terms)
Jon Kyl (4 terms)
Blanche Lincoln (2 terms)
John McCain (2 terms)
Robert Menendez (7 terms)
Barbara Mikulski (5 terms)
Bill Nelson* (4 terms)
Jack Reed (3 terms)
Harry Reid (2 terms)
Pat Roberts (7 terms)
Bernie Sanders (8 terms)
Chuck Schumer (9 terms)
Richard Shelby (4 terms)
Olympia Snowe (3 terms)
Debbie Stabenow (2 terms)
John Thune (3 terms)
Mark Udall (5 terms)
Tom Udall (5 terms)
David Vitter (2 terms and change)
Roger Wicker (6 terms)
Ron Wyden (7 terms and change)
Wayne Allard (3 terms)
George Allen* (1 term)
John Breaux (7 terms and change)
Ben Nighthorse Campbell (3 terms)
Larry Craig (5 terms)
Tom Daschle (4 terms)
Mike DeWine* (4 terms)
Rod Grams (1 term)
Phil Gramm (3 terms)
Tim Hutchinson (2 terms)
Jim Jeffords (7 terms)
Trent Lott (8 terms)
Connie Mack (3 terms)
William Roth (2 terms)
Paul Sarbanes (2 terms)
Rick Santorum (2 terms)
Bob Smith (3 terms)
John Sununu (3 terms)
Jim Talent (4 terms)
Craig Thomas (3 terms)
Robert Torricelli (7 terms)
With some exceptions, the majority of these folks served a relatively short time in the House before ascending to the Senate. Probably half of them served three terms or fewer, while the vast majority served less than a decade in the House.
Note to those aspiring Senators: ambition and boldness are rewarded. If the opportunity comes up to run for Senate after 2-3 terms in the House, it seems good things come to those who take the risk.