Max Sieben Baucus (born December 11, 1941) is the
senior
U.S. Senator from Montana
and a member
of the Democratic
Party. He is the current chairman of the
United States Senate
Committee on Finance and is influential in the debate over
health care
reform in the United States.
Baucus served in the Montana state legislature in the early
1970s before being elected to the
United States House of
Representatives in 1974. He became one of Montana's United
States senators in 1978 and is the seventh longest-serving as of
2009.
Early life, education, and early career
Baucus was
born in Helena,
Montana
, and graduated from Helena High School in
1959. He attended Carleton College
in Minnesota for a year before transferring to
Stanford
University
, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics in
1964, and was a member of the Sigma
Alpha Epsilon fraternity. After graduating, he attended
Stanford University's law school, receiving a
Juris Doctor in 1967.
After
finishing law school, Baucus spent three years as a lawyer at the
Securities and
Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C.
He moved back to Montana in 1971 to serve as
the executive director of the state's Constitutional Convention,
also opening a law office in Missoula, Montana
.
In November 1973, Baucus was elected to the
Montana House of
Representatives as a state representative from Missoula. In
November 1974 he was elected to the
United States House of
Representatives, and was re-elected in 1976.
United States Senate
Elections
Baucus was elected to the U.S. Senate on November 7, 1978 for the
term beginning January 3, 1979, but was subsequently appointed to
the seat by Montana's Democratic Governor
Thomas Lee Judge on December 15, 1978 to
fill the brief vacancy created by Senator
Paul G. Hatfield's resignation. He has served
consecutively ever since.
2002 election
The 2002 Montana elections got national attention when Baucus's
opponent,
state senator
Mike Taylor, accused Baucus of having implied that Taylor was
gay in a campaign ad. The ad was paid
for by the
Democratic Senatorial
Campaign Committee, not by the Baucus campaign. The ad, which
alleged that Taylor had
embezzled funds
from the
cosmetology school he once
owned, showed footage from the early 1980s of Taylor massaging
another man's face while wearing a tight suit with an open shirt.
Taylor dropped out of the race and Baucus won with 63 percent of
the vote.
2008 re-election campaign
Baucus sought re-election in 2008 in Montana, a state that has seen
political change starting in 2004 when it elected Democratic
Governor
Brian Schweitzer and then
Democratic Senator
Jon Tester in 2006 by
a slim margin. Montana was the only state in the U.S. to switch a
chamber of its legislature to
Republican control in 2006.
The legislative chamber had a one-seat Democratic majority that
became a one-seat Republican majority.
Baucus raised a record amount of money for his 2008 re-election
bid, 91 percent of which has come from individuals living outside
of Montana. Similarly, according to the
Center for Responsive
Politics, Baucus's 2008 campaign raised $11.6 million, only 13
percent of which came from Montana donors; the rest included
millions from health care and other industries overseen by Finance
and Baucus's other committees. The overwhelming ratio of special
interest and out-of-state dollars to donations from Montana donors
have raised questions:
So as Baucus and other lawmakers attempt to craft a
bill that can smash through a virtual gridlock of interests, the
awkward question lingers: To whom are they more attentive, their
voting constituencies back home or the dollar constituencies who
are at the Capitol every day?
As a result of Baucus's significant fund-raising advantage, in the
week that he announced his intentions to run for re-election, he
opened eight state offices — one more than he has official offices
in the state. Baucus also announced that he had hired 35 full-time
campaign staff members.
Baucus won re-election in 2008 by a 73-27 margin.
Political positions and actions
Baucus is generally viewed as a
moderate
Democratic member
of the Senate, occasionally breaking with his party on the issues
of taxes, the environment, and
gun
control. The
Web site That's My
Congress gives him a 23 percent rating on
progressive issues it tracks.
NARAL Pro-Choice America's
political action committee
endorsed Baucus during his
2008 election
campaign.
Civil liberties
Baucus voted for a
constitutional amendment
prohibiting the
physical desecration of
the
American flag in 2006.
He also
supported a bill to require online pornography sites to have a .XXX domain, together with Mark
Pryor (D-Ark.
) He supports
the death penalty. The
ACLU rated Baucus at 60 percent in December 2002,
indicating a mixed
civil liberties
voting record.
Gay rights
In December 2006 the
Human Rights
Campaign rated Baucus at 67 percent. He opposes
gay marriage, but voted against a proposed
constitutional ban on it and has supported measures to curb job
discrimination and hate crimes based on
sexual orientation.
Gun rights
In 1999,
he was the only Democrat to vote against an amendment by Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ
) that sought
to "regulate the sale of firearms at gunshows". Baucus can
be frequently found hunting and fishing on public lands around
Montana.
Voting rights
On
February 26, 2009 Baucus and Robert Byrd
were the sole Democrats to vote against District of
Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2009, which provides a
voting seat in the United States House of
Representatives for the District of Columbia
and adding a seat for Utah
. The
bill passed 61-37 with one Senator not voting.
Connections to Jack Abramoff
In December 2005, following the public corruption probe of
Jack Abramoff — who was later convicted of
fraud and corruption — Baucus returned $18,892
in contributions that his office found to be connected to Abramoff.
Included in the returned donations was an estimated $1,892 that was
never reported for Baucus' use of Abramoff's skybox at a
professional sports stadium and concert venue in downtown
Washington in 2001.
Economic issues
Baucus has a 74 percent pro-business voting record as rated by the
United States Chamber
of Commerce. He twice voted to make filing
bankruptcy more difficult for debtors, once in
July 2001 to restrict rules on personal bankruptcy, and a second
time in March 2005 to include means-testing and restrictions for
bankruptcy filers.
He has frequently visited places of employment within the state and
has personally participated in activities that he calls "Work
Days". He has also hosted economic development conferences.
Trade
In March 2005, Baucus voted against repealing tax subsidies that
benefit companies that
outsource US jobs
offshore. On January 4, 2007, he wrote an editorial in the
Wall Street Journal
calling on Democrats to renew President
George W. Bush's fast-track authority for international
trade deals. In response, the Montana State Senate passed a
resolution, 44-6, "that the U.S. Congress be urged to create a
replacement for the outdated fast track system".
Environmental issues
Baucus's environmental record is mixed.
He supports Democratic
leadership in voting against oil and gas subsidies and ANWR
drilling, as
well as by voting in favor national standards to reduce oil
consumption and spur the use of hydrogen-powered cars. But he
has voted against the
CAFE fuel economy
standards and on increasing federal funds for
solar and
wind
power.
The
League of Conservation
Voters (LCV) gave Baucus a 100 percent rating, but only for the
second session of the 110th Congress., but rated him at only 42
percent in December 2003.
Foreign affairs
Cuba
He has opposed the
United States embargo against
Cuba and travel restrictions.
Iraq War
Baucus had voted for the
Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of
2002, but has joined the Democrats in the Senate in demanding
the phased withdrawal of the
Levin Amendment (no firm deadline).
He voted
with a majority of Democrats against Senator John Kerry's amendment stipulating a firm
deadline for withdrawal of American combat personnel from Iraq
.
On July 29, 2006, Baucus's nephew
Marine Cpl. Phillip E. Baucus
(September 24, 1977–July 29, 2006) was killed in combat in Al
Anbar province. Phillip Baucus, a 28-year-old
resident of
Wolf Creek, Montana,
had been a member of the
3rd Light Armored
Reconnaissance Battalion,
1st Marine Division,
I Marine Expeditionary
Force. The funeral was the site of protests by members of the
Westboro Baptist
Church.
On January 10, 2007, the day of Bush's presidential address on his
plan to increase troop
levels in Iraq, Baucus spoke against the increases and called
for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Support for Israel
Baucus is one of the Senate's largest career recipients of
pro-Israel Political Action Committee (PAC)
contributions, receiving $550,589 since 1989.
No trade war with Vietnam over fish
The
Wall Street Journal had published an editorial on Baucus's
attitude over Vietnam’s "tra" and "basa" pangasius, saying
there was no reason for America to launch a trade war with Vietnam
over fish. "He's dead
right about a trade issue now percolating in Washington," said the
newspaper on July 14, 2009.
The article, entitled "Max Baucus's Fish
Sense - Protectionism often hurts the protectionist", outlined this
controversial topic in Washington and underlined the possibility
that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA
) could
effectively ban imports of pangasius fish from Vietnam, which are
similar to US-produced catfish.
The ostensible reason for the move would be food safety and the
USDA is considering whether Vietnamese fish should be subject to a
stricter safety inspection regime. But the article said that there
have been no reported cases of Vietnamese fish making American
consumers sick and the proposed inspections would be onerous. It
quoted Baucus as telling
Congress Daily, "If we expect
other countries to follow the rules and drop these restrictions, it
is critical that we play by the rules and do not block imports for
arbitrary or unscientific reasons."
Health care reform
Senate finance committee
As chairman of the
Senate
Finance Committee, Baucus called the first Senate meeting of
interested parties before the committee to discuss
health care reform,
including representatives from pharmaceutical groups, insurance
companies, and HMOs and hospital management companies. The meeting
was controversial because it did not include representatives from
groups calling for
single-payer
health care.
Opposition to single payer health care
Advocate groups attended a Senate Finance Committee meeting in May
2009 to protest their exclusion as well as statements by Baucus
that "single payer was not an option on the table." Baucus later
had eight protesters (among them physicians and nurses), removed by
police who arrested them for disrupting the hearing. Many of the
single-payer advocates claimed it was a "
pay
to play" event. A representative of the
Business Roundtable, which includes 35
memberships of
HMOs, health insurance and
pharmaceutical companies, admitted
that other countries, with lower health costs, and higher quality
of care, such as those with
single-payer systems, have a
competitive advantage over the United States with its
private system.
At the next meeting on health care reform of the Senate Finance
Committee, Baucus had five more doctors and nurses removed and
arrested.
Baucus admitted a few weeks later in June 2009 that it was a
mistake to rule out a single payer plan because doing so alienated
a large, vocal constituency and left President
Barack Obama’s proposal of a
public health plan to compete
with private insurers as the most
liberal
position.
Baucus has used the term "uniquely American solution" to describe
the end point of current health reform and has said that he
believes America is not ready yet for any form of single payer
health care. This is the same term the insurance trade association,
America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), is using. AHIP has
launched the Campaign for an American Solution, which argues for
the use of private health insurance instead of a government backed
program. Critics have said that
Medicare is already effectively a
single-payer system.
Conflict of interest charges
Baucus has been criticized for his ties to the health insurance and
pharmaceutical industries, and has been one of the largest
beneficiaries in the Senate of campaign contributions from these
industries. From 2003 to 2008, Baucus received $3,973,485 from the
health sector, including $852,813 from pharmaceutical companies,
$851,141 from health professionals, $784,185 from the insurance
industry and $465,750 from HMOs/health services, according to the
Center for Responsive
Politics. A 2006 study by
Public
Citizen found that between 1999 and 2005 Baucus, along with
former Senate majority leader
Bill Frist,
took in the most special-interest money of any senator.
Only three senators have more former staffers working as lobbyists
on
K Street, at least two dozen in Baucus's
case. Several of Baucus's ex-staffers, including former chief of
staff
David Castagnetti, are now
working for the pharmaceutical and health insurance industries.
Castagnetti co-founded the lobbying firm of
Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti, which
represents "
America’s Health
Insurance Plans Inc.," the national trade group of health
insurance companies, the Medicare Cost Contractors Alliance, as
well as
Amgen,
AstraZeneca PLC and
Merck & Co. Another former chief of
staff,
Jeff Forbes, went on to open his
own lobbying shop and to represent the
Pharmaceutical
Research and Manufacturers of America and the Advanced Medical
Technology Association, among other groups.
A statistical analysis of the impact of political contributions on
individual senators' support for the public insurance option
conducted by
Nate Silver has suggested
that Baucus was an unlikely supporter of the
public option in the first place. Based on
Baucus's political ideology and the per capita health care spending
in Montana, Silver's model projects that there would be only a
30.6% probability of Baucus supporting a public insurance option
even if he had received no relevant campaign contributions. Silver
calculates that the impact on Baucus of the significant campaign
contributions that he has received from the health care industry
further reduces the probability of his supporting a public
insurance option from 30.6% to 0.6%.
In response to the questions raised by the large amount of funding
he took from the health care industry, Baucus declared a moratorium
as of July 1, 2009 on taking more special interest money from
health care political action committees. Baucus, however, declined
to return as part of his moratorium any of the millions of dollars
he has received from health care industry interests before July 1,
2009, or to rule out a resumption of taking the same or greater
health care industry contributions in the future. Baucus's new
policy on not taking health care industry money reportedly still
permits him to take money from lobbyists or corporate executes, who
the Washington Post found continued to make donations after July 1,
2009.
A watchdog group found that in July 2009 Baucus took more money
from the health care industry in violation of the self-defined
terms of his moratorium, leading Baucus to return the money.
Tax policy
Baucus voted for the
Bush
tax cuts in 2001. He has usually voted against repealing
portions of that bill and against repealing more recent tax cut
bills that benefit upper income taxpayers. In 2008, he voted in
favor of permanently repealing the
estate
tax.
Ability to seek legal redress
He was one of 26 senators to vote against the
Class Action Fairness Act of
2005.
Committee assignments
Current
Electoral history
1974 United States House of Representatives
- Max Baucus (D) 54.7%
- Dick Shoup (R) 45.3%
1976 United States House of Representatives
- Max Baucus (D) (inc.) 66.4%
- Bill Diehl (R) 33.6%
1978 United States Senate
- Max Baucus (D) 55.6%
- Larry Williams (R) 44.4%
1984 United States Senate
- Max Baucus (D) (inc.) 56.9%
- Chuck Cozzens (R) 40.7%
1990 United States Senate
- Max Baucus (D) (inc.) 69.8%
- Allen C. Kolstad (R) 30.2%
1996 United States Senate
- Max Baucus (D) (inc.) 49.5%
- Dennis Rehberg (R) 44.7%
- Becky Shaw (Reform) 4.7%
- Stephen Heaton (Natural Law) 1%
2002 United States Senate
- Max Baucus (D) (inc.) 63%
- Mike Taylor (R) 32%
- Bob Kelleher (Green) 3%
2008 United States Senate
Personal
Baucus has come under fire from critics calling him a
beltway insider who no longer really lives in
Montana and only occasionally comes to visit. Until 1991, Baucus
owned a house in Missoula, where he practiced law for three years
before running for Congress in 1974. He didn't own a home again in
Montana until February 2002, when he bought half of his mother's
house from the
Sieben Ranch
Company, the ranch started by Baucus's great-grandfather in
1897. The ranch company, and Baucus's mother, still own the other
half of the house.
Baucus has owned a home in Washington,
D.C.'s upscale Georgetown
district since 1984. As of November 2007,
the
Missoulian newspaper reported he owned no other
property in Montana.
In April 2009, The Associated Press reported that Baucus and his
wife, the former Wanda Minge, are divorcing after 25 years of
marriage.
Baucus has one son, Zeno, by his first wife, Ann Geracimos.
Baucus has completed a 50-mile
ultramarathon and has crewed for female winner
and fellow Montana native
Nikki
Kimball at the 100-mile
Western States Endurance Run,
which he hopes to run in 2009.
In popular culture
Baucus was featured prominently in musician
Chris Stroffolino's 2009 song "HMO Jive
and Public Option" which has been played on
Thom Hartmann's political talk show on the
Air America network during the summer of
2009.
References
- Baucus Watch: A key senator on health reform holds
a listening session, Columbia Journalism Review
- Missoulian: Baucus's campaign fills coffers with
out-of-state funds
- Seabrook, Andrea & Overby, Peter (July 22, 2009). "Baucus Linchpin In Health Care Talks." NPR,
All Things Considered. Retrieved on July 22, 2009.
- Congressional website
-
http://senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=1&vote=00073
- League of
Conservation Voters 2008 Scorecard
-
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/109/senate/2/votes/181/
- Sun Herald news report
- Montana senator’s nephew dies in Iraq
- DefenseLink: "DoD Identifies Marine
Casualty"
- Senator's Nephew Mourned by Hundreds
-
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/industries.php?cycle=Career&cid=N00004643
- Max Baucus's Fish Sense
- Không có lý do gì về cá tra, basa Việt Nam
- US Senator warns against trade barriers to
Vietnam’s fish
- US senator protests over ban on Vietnam’s
fish
- Catfish fight could hurt beef producers
- http://www.edschultzshow.com/videoblog/details.asp?BID=111
MSNBC The Ed Show: Is Single payer on or off the table?
- Show Strong Support for Single-Payer Health
Program." Sustainable Middle Class (citing 2009 polls by CNN
and CBS News/NYT). Retrieved on July 22, 2009.
- Health care reform advocates get arrested while
protesting, The Billings Gazette
- Police eject protesters from Senate health
hearing, The Associated Press
- Make it the Baucus 13, Single Payer Action
- Herszenhorn, David (June 23, 2009). "Baucus Grabs Pacesetter Role on Health Bill."
NYT. Retrieved on July 22, 2009.
- Baucus's Raucous Caucus: Doctors, Nurses and
Activists Arrested Again for Protesting Exclusion of Single-Payer
Advocates at Senate Hearing on Health Care, Democracy Now
- Top Industries: Senator Max Baucus 2003 -
2008
- Jack Cafferty, "Six lobbyists per lawmaker enough on health
care?" CNN, 9/3/09.
- Eggen, Dan (July 21, 2009). "Industry Cash Flowed To Drafters of Reform; Key
Senator Baucus Is a Leading Recipient." Washington Post.
Retrieved on July 22, 2009.
- Roth, Zachary (July 21, 2009). "CORRECTED: Oops! Baucus Caught Out On Claim He
Renounced SAYS HE RETURNED Health-Care PAC Dollars." TPM. Retrieved
on July 22, 2009.
- Bozeman Montana Local News
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