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Patrick Leahy

Patrick Joseph Leahy, (born March 31, 1940) is an American politician and attorney who represented Vermont in the United States Senate from 1975 to 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, he also was the president pro tempore of the United States Senate from 2012 to 2015 and from 2021 to 2023.

Leahy was the third-longest-serving U.S. senator in history at 48 years, and was the longest-serving member of the United States Congress to serve solely as a senator. During his tenure he chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee, the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Agriculture Committee. In March 2022, he became the most senior member of Congress. At the time of his retirement, Leahy was the dean of Vermont's congressional delegation, Vermont's longest-serving U.S. senator, and the first Democrat ever elected to the U.S. Senate from Vermont. Leahy was succeeded by Peter Welch, who became the second Democrat to represent Vermont in the Senate.

Leahy's signature legislation is the Leahy Law forbidding the United States from funding foreign military units which violate human rights. Leahy was the presiding officer at Donald Trump's second impeachment trial, becoming the first senator to preside over a former president's impeachment trial. In 2023, Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport was renamed after him.

Early life and education
Leahy was born in Montpelier, Vermont, the son of Alba (née Zambon) and Howard Francis Leahy. He has been legally blind in his left eye since birth. Leahy's maternal grandparents were Italian, and his father was of Irish ancestry; some of his ancestors came to Vermont in the 19th century to work at the granite quarries and manufacturing plants in Barre Town and Barre City. The Leahys ran a printing business across from the Vermont State House, and were also the publishers of the Waterbury Record newspaper. Leahy attended the parochial schools of Montpelier, and graduated from Montpelier's St. Michael's High School in 1957.

In 1961, Leahy graduated from Saint Michael's College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in government. While attending college, Leahy was a member of the National Federation of Catholic College Students. He was also involved with the Knights of Columbus, the Saint Michael's College Glee Club, and the school's pre-law society and politics club. He was active with the Reserve Officers' Training Corps rifle team, and was a member of the varsity rifle team. He was also on the staff of The Shield, the Saint Michael's College yearbook and WSSE, the school's AM radio station. In 1964, Leahy received his Juris Doctor from the Georgetown University Law Center. While in law school, Leahy was active in the Phi Delta Phi legal honor society. In addition, Leahy participated in Georgetown Law's Legal Aid Society and Legal Argument Program. He was also a representative to the school's Student Bar Association.

At graduation, Leahy was offered an E. Barrett Prettyman Fellowship, which would have enabled him to earn a Master of Laws degree from Georgetown while receiving training in courtroom advocacy. Leahy was also interviewed by the United States Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy as one of several Georgetown Law students being considered for recruitment into the United States Department of Justice. He declined the fellowship and did not pursue a position at the Department of Justice because he intended to return to Vermont, and because he did not plan to practice criminal law.

Early career
Leahy was admitted to the bar soon after his law school graduation and became an associate at the Burlington firm headed by Philip H. Hoff, who then was governor of Vermont. In January 1965, Leahy was appointed as an assistant to Lewis E. Springer Jr., the legislative draftsman for the Vermont General Assembly. While working for Hoff's firm, Leahy was also appointed as Burlington's assistant city attorney.

In May 1966, Hoff appointed Leahy State's Attorney of Chittenden County after the incumbent resigned. Leahy was elected to a full term in 1966 and reelected in 1970. His service as state's attorney was notable for his participation in the sting operation that caught Paul Lawrence, an undercover police officer for numerous departments in Vermont. Lawrence falsely claimed to have purchased illegal drugs from several people, resulting in numerous convictions based on his perjury.

From 1971 to 1974, Leahy served as vice president of the National Association of District Attorneys, and in 1974 the organization named him one of the country's three outstanding prosecutors. Beginning in 1971, he was also involved in the extensive effort to solve the murder of Rita Curran, who had been killed in her Burlington apartment. The murder, which Leahy later called among the most violent he saw while working as a prosecutor, went unsolved until 2023, when DNA testing of evidence left at the crime scene led to the identification of the perpetrator.

Early career (1975–1987)

Leahy originally aspired to the governorship, but in 1974 ran for the United States Senate. He ran in the wake of the Watergate scandal that had resulted in President Richard Nixon's resignation in August of that year, won a close race against Republican Congressman Richard W. Mallary, and succeeded the retiring George Aiken. At age 34, Leahy was the youngest U.S. senator in Vermont history and the first non-Republican senator from Vermont since 1856. In 1980, Leahy defeated Republican Stewart Ledbetter by only 2,700 votes amid Ronald Reagan's landslide victory in the presidential election. In 1986, he faced what was on paper an even stronger challenger in former Governor Richard Snelling, but Leahy turned it back, taking 63 percent of the vote. In 1992, Secretary of State of Vermont Jim Douglas held him to 54 percent of the vote. After that, Leahy did not face a strong Republican challenger.

In May 1981, Leahy and Senator Ted Kennedy requested that the Senate reject John Crowell Jr.'s nomination as Assistant Agriculture Secretary. Leahy said his opposition was "because documents have been uncovered since his approval by the Agriculture Committee which suggest that he was aware of and involved in the anti-competitive and monopolistic practices of his former employer." Leahy and Kennedy contended that Crowell concealed his involvement with Louisiana-Pacific, Panhandle Logging Company, and Ketchikan Spruce Mills during the confirmation process. Crowell was confirmed by the Senate.

In October 1981, Leahy introduced an amendment that would have increased the Energy Department's enforcement budget by $13 million. He called the Reagan administration's cuts to the enforcement budget "de facto amnesty" for violations made by alleged increases in prices for oil companies. The amendment was defeated in the Senate on October 28 by a vote of 48 to 43. On December 2, 1981, Leahy voted for an amendment to Reagan's MX missiles proposal that would divert the silo system by $334 million, as well as earmark further research for other methods that would allow giant missiles to be based. The vote was seen as a rebuff of the Reagan administration. In March 1982, Leahy was named to the Senate Select Committee to Study Law Enforcement Undercover Activities of the Department of Justice, an eight-member select committee formed to investigate undercover operations. The resolution introducing the committee was the result of Harrison A. Williams's resignation for his involvement in the Abscam sting operation. On December 23, 1982, Leahy voted for a five-cent per gallon increase on gasoline taxes across the U.S. to finance highway repairs and mass transit. The bill passed on the last day of the 97th United States Congress. On October 19, 1983, Leahy voted for a bill establishing Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Reagan signed the legislation the next month. In March 1984, Leahy voted against a proposed constitutional amendment authorizing periods in public school for silent prayer, and against Reagan's unsuccessful proposal for a constitutional amendment permitting organized school prayer in public schools.

Senate Agriculture Committee and other activities (1987–1999)
Leahy was appointed chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee on January 3, 1987. During his tenure as vice-chair of the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 1987, Leahy showed a news reporter an unclassified draft report on the Iran–Contra affair. At a press conference afterward, Leahy said, "Even though it was declassified, I was way too careless about it" and accepted blame. Disclosure of that information was against Intelligence Committee rules; Leahy said he hastened his already planned departure from the committee because he was so angry at himself. Later that year, as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Leahy said that if Reagan could not produce an acceptable Supreme Court nominee to replace Lewis F. Powell Jr., after Robert Bork was rejected and Douglas Ginsburg withdrew, Senate Democrats would refuse hearings for any nominee until after the 1988 presidential election. In May 1989, Leahy urged the Agriculture Department to withdraw the proposals regarding the reduction of federal inspections. In May 1990, he and Representative Dan Glickman introduced the Consumer Seafood Safety Act, a bill that would have strengthened fish inspections. Leahy has been active in the international effort to ban the production, export, and use of anti-personnel land mines. In 1992, he penned a bill to prohibit the export of land mines, the first law of its kind.

In February 1992, the George H. W. Bush administration and Israeli officials struggled to strike a deal that would entice both sides to proceed with a loan guarantee package. After a meeting between Secretary of State James Baker and Zalman Shoval failed to generate a compromise, Baker informed Leahy of the meeting's contents and Leahy announced that he would introduce his own plan if the U.S. and Israel could not come to an agreement in the following weeks. Later that month, the Bush administration announced the U.S. would present Israel with loan guarantees only if the Israeli government halted settlement building. Leahy supported the measure and introduced his own proposal that retained the $10 billion in loan guarantees, but "disbursed at a pace up to $2 billion a year for five years". On November 20, 1993, Leahy voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement. The agreement linked the U.S., Canada, and Mexico into a single free trade zone, and was signed into law on December 8 by President Bill Clinton. Clinton publicly weighed reducing funding for The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) by half. In March 1994, during a news conference, Leahy pledged that he would preserve funding for TEFAP, noting his 1987 lawsuit against Agriculture Secretary Richard Edmund Lyng and declaring that TEFAP maintained the same level of significance as it did then. In August 1994, Leahy attended a news conference with the health advocacy group Public Voice, as it urged the federal government to take more ambitious steps to increase the healthiness of school lunches. He praised the 41 schools involved with Public Voice for setting a good example for the rest of the country and cited the importance of school lunches to education. The 1994 midterm elections resulted in a Republican majority in the House for the first time since the 1950s, and conversation arose of limiting feeding programs. Leahy remarked, "Not since the Great Depression has the possibility of millions of children lining up at soup kitchens been so real." He cosponsored legislation with Indiana Republican Richard Lugar that led to the downsizing of the Agriculture Department. In December 1994, the department announced it was closing 1,274 field offices around the US, a scaling back that was estimated to save over $3 billion over the next five years. Leahy said the Agriculture Department was the only federal agency to succeed in its downsizing efforts and called on other agencies to follow its example. In 1994, Leahy introduced legislation to encourage schools to ban soft drinks and other food items of "minimal nutritional value", saying, "These vending profits go for good causes. But when it comes to vending machine junk food, it would be better to put pupils ahead of vending profits." The bill overcame opposition from The Coca-Cola Company and other representatives of the beverage industry, as well as some education organizations, and was enacted. In October 1999, Leahy voted for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The treaty was designed to ban underground nuclear testing and was the first major international security pact to be defeated in the Senate since the Treaty of Versailles.

1999 to 2009

The 1998 United States Senate election in Vermont was noteworthy, in that Republican candidate Fred Tuttle endorsed Leahy. Tuttle was a retired farmer and the lead actor in the mock documentary film Man with a Plan, shot in Vermont, in which a farmer decides to run for Congress. After winning the Republican nomination in a campaign designed both to promote the movie and to mock ostensible GOP frontrunner Jack McMullen, who had only recently moved to Vermont from Massachusetts, Tuttle recommended that voters support Leahy. Leahy was touched by this gesture; he and Tuttle made several joint appearances during the campaign, and Leahy said of Tuttle that he was the "distilled essence of Vermonthood".

The September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center shifted American foreign policy focus to terrorism. In December 2006, during an appearance at the law school of Georgetown University, Leahy said that after the September 11 attacks, "the White House accelerated its power plays at the expense of the other branches of government, all in the name of fighting terrorism." He added that the administration had declined to answer "the legitimate oversight questions of the public's duly elected representatives", as well as broken the law by wiretapping Americans without warrants. On September 13, 2002, Leahy said in a radio interview that an investigation should be launched into whether the West Nile virus was a biological terrorism effort. During a July 1, 2007, interview, Leahy said he was not against lawful eavesdropping and recommended a revision to the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act, so potential terrorists could be investigated without question. Leahy added that the White House had been subpoenaed, so George W. Bush administration officials could explain "the legal justification they tried to follow when, for years, they wiretapped ordinary Americans and everyone else put out a warrant." Leahy was one of two senators targeted in the 2001 anthrax attacks. The anthrax letter meant for him was intercepted before it reached his office. In 2004, Leahy was awarded the Electronic Privacy Information Center's Champion of Freedom Award, for efforts in information privacy and open government. He is regarded as one of the leading privacy advocates in Congress. In 2000, Leahy cosigned a letter sent to Appropriations Committee conference members, requesting a delay in implementing Section 304 in H.R. 4392, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001, until it could be fully considered by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. The amendment would introduce new felony crime laws, concerning the unauthorized disclosure of information. Leahy and his colleagues indicated this would be in conflict with existing First Amendment rights and Whistleblower Protection Acts. On June 22, 2004, Leahy and Vice President Dick Cheney participated in the U.S. Senate class photo. After the vote, Cheney was talking to only Republicans. When Leahy asked him to come over and talk to the Democrats, Cheney upbraided Leahy for the Senator's recent excoriations of Halliburton's activities in Iraq. At the end of the exchange, Cheney told Leahy, "Go fuck yourself." Leahy joked about the incident in 2007, when he escorted Bernie Sanders, Vermont's newly elected senator, to the well of the Senate where he was sworn in by Cheney: "When it comes to the vice president, it's always better to be sworn in than to be sworn at."

Leahy opposed the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and writes in his 2022 memoir that he found files with information that contradicted Dick Cheney's public statements about Iraq after mysterious joggers whose identities he did not know told him to request specific files.

In March 2004, Leahy and Senator Orrin Hatch introduced the Pirate Act, backed by the Recording Industry Association of America. In July 2004, Leahy and Hatch introduced the INDUCE Act. Both were aimed at combating copyright infringement. On November 2, 2004, Leahy easily defeated his opponent, businessman Jack McMullen, with 70.6 percent of the vote. On September 21, 2005, Leahy announced his support for John Roberts to be Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. On January 19, 2006, Leahy announced that he would vote against Judge Samuel Alito, to be a justice of the Supreme Court. He has a mixed record on gun control, being one of the few Senate Democrats to vote against the Brady Bill. He voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and is in favor of phasing out farm subsidies. He voted against the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Leahy voted for the Defense of Marriage Act and was one of the few in his party to support the ban on intact dilation and extraction procedures. In 2005, Project on Government Oversight, a government watchdog group, presented Leahy and Senator John Cornyn with its first ever Bi-Partisan Leadership Award, in honor of their cooperation on issues of government oversight and transparency, including their co-sponsorship of the OPEN Government Act of 2005, which prevented burying exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act in legislation. On March 2, 2006, Leahy was one of ten senators to vote against the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act, a bill to extend the USA PATRIOT Act. The Reauthorization Act changed the appointment process for interim United States attorneys, allowing the Attorney General of the United States to make interim appointments without term limit or Senatorial confirmation. This was an aspect of hearings in the dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy. In March 2007, both houses voted to overturn the interim appointment provision. On January 18, 2007, Leahy received widespread coverage for his cross-examination of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, about the Maher Arar affair and the extraordinary rendition of Arar to Syria.

Later career (2009–2023)
Leahy endorsed Barack Obama, the Democratic junior senator from Illinois, in the 2008 presidential election, and recorded a radio advertisement for the Obama campaign to be aired in Vermont.

In May 2009, President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Sotomayor received criticism for having said "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." In June, Leahy discussed the remark with Sotomayor and secured her consent to publicly recount their conversation. According to Leahy, the comment meant she believed one's life experiences influence who they are, but that judges of all ethnic backgrounds are still required to follow the law, which is the same for every American. In August, on the day of Sotomayor's confirmation, Leahy defended her record against Republican critics: "Judge Sotomayor's career and judicial record demonstrates that she has always followed the rule of law. Attempts at distorting that record by suggesting that her ethnicity or heritage will be the driving force in her decisions as a justice of the Supreme Court are demeaning to women and all communities of color."

On September 20, 2010, Leahy introduced the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act, Senate Bill S. 3804, which would allow the court to issue a restraining order or injunction against Internet domain names which infringe upon copyright.

In May 2011, Leahy introduced the Protect IP Act (PIPA) to the Senate. The bill was drafted to give the U.S. government and copyright holders additional tools to fight copyright piracy and counterfeit goods trafficking by foreign rogue websites. Critics of the bill said it would be ineffective, impede free expression on the internet, and interfere with its infrastructure. Leahy subsequently indicated that he would favor further research into provisions that raised objections.

Leahy chaired the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee from 1987 until 1995 the Judiciary Committee from 2001 to 2003 and from 2007 to 2015. He is one of the key Democratic leaders on Senate issues on rules for filling federal judgeships, via advise and consent. Leahy serves as second-highest Democrat on the Appropriations Committee and as Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs. In his position as the second-highest Democrat on the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, Leahy chairs the Agriculture Subcommittee on Research, Nutrition and General Legislation.

Upon the death of Senate President pro tempore Daniel Inouye, a Hawaii Democrat, on December 17, 2012, Leahy became the most senior senator in the majority party, and was elected president pro tempore by unanimous consent. He was succeeded in this post by Orrin Hatch on January 3, 2015, and became president pro tempore emeritus.

In February 2013, Leahy was one of 24 senators to sign a letter asserting that Sikh, Hindu and Arab Americans were often targets of violence because they were mistaken for radical Muslims and citing a need for the federal government to "begin tracking information about anti-Sikh, anti-Hindu and anti-Arab hate crimes as soon as possible so that law enforcement can more effectively respond to this threat".

In June 2013, Leahy filed three amendments to an immigration reform package, including one that proposed recognizing same-sex marriages when one spouse is an American. He said implementation of the amendment would end discrimination in the American immigration system and that seeking "equal protection under our laws for the LGBT community is the right thing to do."

According to GovTrack, in 2013, Leahy was the senator who has sponsored the most bipartisan bills. Sixty-one percent of bills he sponsored had both Democratic and Republican co-sponsors.

In January 2015, Leahy headed a congressional delegation to Cuba, meant to "impress upon Cuban leaders the importance of concrete results and positive momentum". It was American officials' first visit to Cuba, since President Obama announced normalized relations between the US and Cuba the previous month.

In July 2015, after the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was unveiled, an international agreement on the nuclear program of Iran, Leahy issued a statement saying it was preferable to war and calling it "unfortunate" that some members of Congress opposed the deal as the lack of deal would allow Iran to further develop nuclear weapons.

In January 2017, during a hearing, Leahy asked Jeff Sessions, President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general, whether he believed grabbing a woman by her genitals without consent was sexual assault, in reference to comments made by Trump on the Access Hollywood tape that had surfaced during the election cycle. Leahy also asked Sessions if he would be able to "prosecute and investigate" a president or elected official who had been accused of committing the aforementioned act.

In April 2017, Leahy was one of 11 senators to cosponsor a bill that would have restored a FCC rule requiring internet service providers to obtain permission from customers before selling data about them to advertisers that had been repealed earlier in the week.

On June 1, 2017, weeks after the firing of FBI Director James Comey, Leahy and Senator Al Franken of Minnesota released a joint statement disclosing their prior request of Comey to investigate all contacts and communications Attorney General Sessions or his aides had with Russian government officials and raised the question of whether Sessions had committed perjury in his Senate testimony.

In September 2017, Leahy was one of eight senators to vote against the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a defense policy bill that included $640 billion in base defense spending and $60 billion in war funds.

In November 2017, Leahy was one of ten Democratic senators to sign a letter urging Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu to halt the planned demolitions of Palestinian villages Khan al-Ahmar and Sussiya, on the grounds that such action would further impede efforts to seek a two-state solution and "endanger Israel's future as a Jewish democracy".

On January 18, 2018, Leahy announced he would not support the stopgap measure for the fiscal year to avert a government shutdown, saying the House bill left "too much undone, and it is woefully inadequate". Leahy added that bipartisan support for the bill would only come from collaborating with Democrats and charged Republicans with "appealing for our support only after they've written a mishmash bill crafted behind closed doors". After the United States federal government shutdown of January 2018 commenced, Leahy was one of 18 senators to vote against temporary funding.

In February 2018, Leahy was one of four senators to sign a letter to United States Secretary of Defense James Mattis requesting that the Pentagon estimate the cost of and time needed to assemble President Trump's requested military parade, calling the parade seemingly "inappropriate and wasteful" at a time of war.

In March 2018, Leahy wrote a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley in which he expressed his fear that "the damage being done to the FBI, and to our nation's institutions more broadly, will far outlast any current crises unless we take decisive, bipartisan action" and requested an oversight hearing on the Trump administration's criticisms of the FBI and Justice Department.

In September 2018, as the Senate weighed the first spending package for the 2019 fiscal year, Leahy advocated for increasing the spending cap for a veterans' care program. When this proposal was not implemented in the final version of the package, which consisted of military construction and veterans' affairs, legislative branch, and energy and water, Leahy warned the decision would leave the VA choice program unfunded.

In October 2018, Leahy, along with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee Bob Menendez, and Lindsey Graham, sent President Trump a letter requesting that he begin an investigation of the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act. The letter asked Trump to report the findings within 120 days, along with a decision on whether to impose sanctions on those found responsible. Later that month, Leahy was one of eight senators to sign a letter to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats requesting a classified briefing on what the American intelligence community knew about threats to Khashoggi, so that the senators may fulfill their "oversight obligation" as members of Congress. In March 2019, Leahy was one of nine Democratic senators to sign a letter to Salman of Saudi Arabia requesting the release of human rights lawyer Waleed Abu al-Khair and writer Raif Badawi, women's rights activists Loujain al-Hathloul and Samar Badawi, and Dr. Walid Fitaih. The senators wrote, "Not only have reputable international organizations detailed the arbitrary detention of peaceful activists and dissidents without trial for long periods, but the systematic discrimination against women, religious minorities and mistreatment of migrant workers and others has also been well-documented."

In December 2018, after United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the Trump administration would suspend its obligations in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 60 days, if Russia continued to violate the treaty, Leahy was one of 26 senators to sign a letter expressing concern over the administration's "now abandoning generations of bipartisan U.S. leadership around the paired goals of reducing the global role and number of nuclear weapons and ensuring strategic stability with America's nuclear-armed adversaries" and calling on President Trump to continue arms negotiations.

After Minnesota Representative Rick Nolan retired from Congress in 2019, Leahy became the only remaining Watergate baby in Congress.

Leahy endorsed fellow Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders's 2020 presidential campaign.

In May 2021, POLITICO reported that Leahy was "leaning toward [running for a ninth term]" and asking his Senate colleagues for support. On November 15, 2021, Leahy announced that he was not running for a ninth term. Upon the death of Representative Don Young on March 18, 2022, Leahy became the longest-serving current member of Congress. Leahy's last term ended in January 2023, and he was succeeded by Peter Welch; he was the last United States senator to have served in the 1970s.

Committee assignments

 * Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry
 * Subcommittee on Rural Revitalization, Conservation, Forestry and Credit
 * Subcommittee on Production, Income Protection and Price Support
 * Subcommittee on Hunger, Nutrition and Family Farms
 * Committee on Appropriations (chair)
 * Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies
 * Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies
 * Subcommittee on Defense
 * Subcommittee on Homeland Security
 * Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies
 * Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs
 * Committee on the Judiciary
 * Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration
 * Subcommittee on Intellectual Property
 * Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights and Federal Courts
 * Committee on Rules and Administration

Nomination for UN General Assembly
In September 2022, Leahy was nominated as a representative of the United States to the Seventy-seventh session of the United Nations General Assembly.

Political positions

Leahy has held progressive political positions that are generally in line with those of the state.

Abortion
Leahy has supported abortion rights, rejecting proposals to limit minors or those stationed on military bases from having the procedure performed. He voted against the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in 1995 and for it between 1997 and 2003.

On March 11, 1982, Leahy voted against a measure sponsored by Orrin Hatch that sought to reverse Roe v. Wade and allow Congress and individual states to adopt laws banning abortions. Its passing was the first time a congressional committee supported an anti-abortion amendment.

Agriculture
In 2019, Leahy worked with Senators Sherrod Brown, Susan Collins, and David Perdue on a bipartisan effort to ensure students have access to local foods. The proposal would bolster the Farm to School Grant Program, administered by the Agriculture Department, and raise the program's authorized level from $5 million to $15 million, in addition to furthering the maximum grant award to $250,000.

In March 2019, Leahy was one of 38 senators to sign a letter to United States Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue warning that dairy farmers "have continued to face market instability and are struggling to survive the fourth year of sustained low prices", and urging his department to "strongly encourage these farmers to consider the Dairy Margin Coverage program".

In May 2019, Leahy and eight other Democratic senators sent Perdue a letter that criticized the USDA for using farm bailout money to purchase pork from the Brazilian-owned JBS USA, writing that it was "counterproductive and contradictory" for foreign companies to receive "U.S. taxpayer dollars intended to help American farmers struggling with this administration's trade policy". The senators requested that the department "ensure these commodity purchases are carried out in a manner that most benefits the American farmer's bottom line—not the business interests of foreign corporations."

In June 2019, Leahy and 18 other Democratic senators sent USDA Inspector General (IG), Phyllis K. Fong, a letter requesting that she investigate USDA instances of retaliation and political decision-making, and arguing that to not conduct an investigation would mean these "actions could be perceived as a part of this administration's broader pattern of not only discounting the value of federal employees, but suppressing, undermining, discounting, and wholesale ignoring scientific data produced by their own qualified scientists."

Antitrust, competition, and corporate regulation
In June 2019, Leahy was one of six Democrats, led by Amy Klobuchar, who signed letters to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice recounting that many of them had "called on both the FTC and the Justice Department to investigate potential anticompetitive activity in these markets, particularly following the significant enforcement actions taken by foreign competition enforcers against these same companies", and requesting that each agency confirm whether it had opened antitrust investigations into each of the companies and that each agency pledge to publicly release any such investigation's findings.

Cannabis
Leahy supports states' rights to make their own cannabis laws. He proposed a companion to the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment, which would extend protections to states that have legalized cannabis in some form. It became known as the Leahy Amendment, and prevents the federal government from spending federal tax dollars to prosecute people who are following their state's cannabis laws.

Child care
In 2019, Leahy and 34 other senators introduced the Child Care for Working Families Act, a bill that created 770,000 new child care jobs and ensured that families making less than 75 percent of the state median income did not pay for child care, with higher earning families having to pay "their fair share for care on a sliding scale, regardless of the number of children they have". The legislation also supported universal access to high-quality preschool programs for all three- and four-year-olds, changed compensation for the child care workforce, and provided training to aid both teachers and caregivers.

China
In a September 12, 2019, press release, Leahy condemned the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China and contended that Falun Gong is a threat to the survival of the Chinese Communist Party. He also argued that the Chinese government should commit to ending the use of torture, organ harvesting of prisoners, and propaganda against minorities.

Civil justice

In February 2016, Leahy introduced the "Restoring Statutory Rights Act", to "prevent companies from imposing forced arbitration in cases covered by consumer protection laws, as well as employment discrimination and other civil rights matters".

Civil rights and privacy
Leahy has been supported by the NAACP and is outspoken in his support for affirmative action. He has supported the legalization of gay marriage and reducing discrimination against gays and lesbians. Leahy has called for the domestic partners of federal employees to receive the same benefits as heterosexual couples.

Leahy is a lead sponsor of the Senate version of the Email Privacy Act, which would reform the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 and enhance privacy protections for email. He sponsored this bipartisan bill with Republican Mike Lee of Utah.

Criminal justice
Leahy has called for a moratorium on the death penalty and for more DNA testing for death row inmates. He supports rehabilitation as the goal of prisons and providing treatment, instead of punishment, for first-time offenders.

In February 2015, Leahy and Republican Rand Paul revived the Justice Safety Valve Act, legislation granting federal judges authority to bestow sentences lower than the mandatory punishment in certain cases, where the sentence violates standards for fair punishment as defined elsewhere in American law.

In October 2017, Leahy cosponsored a bill aimed at easing sentences for some nonviolent offenders, such as for drug crimes, while beefing up other tough-on-crime laws. The bill would have abolished the three-strike mandatory life sentence for some repeat drug offenders and authorized enhanced penalties for some individuals with previous convictions for serious violent and drug felonies.

On July 31, 2019, after Attorney General William Barr announced that the federal government would resume carrying out the death penalty, for the first time in over 20 years, Leahy, Cory Booker, and Dick Durbin introduced a bill that would ban the death penalty. Leahy said capital punishment fails "by any objective measure", citing its finality and juries' propensity to mistakenly convict.

Defense
Leahy was a longtime critic of the Iraq War, and spoke in favor of timetables for troop withdrawal, saying the country needs well-trained employees in both foreign service and private industry to help repair damage to its civilian structure. He has been critical of the PATRIOT Act, even though he has voted to reauthorize altered versions of it. In June 2013, following the disclosure of PRISM and other covert surveillance activities by the National Security Agency, Leahy introduced a bill that would tighten guidelines related to the acquisition of FISA warrants for domestic surveillance and shorten the current FISA authorization by two years.

Leahy has always opposed the opening and operation of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, and supported punishment of war profiteering.

Economy
On taxation, Leahy has consistently supported progressive rates. He has rejected proposals to remove the Estate Tax and Alternative Minimum Tax, and he has spoken out strongly against cutting taxes for the wealthy. Leahy has strongly supported the rights of employees, and has voted to increase the minimum wage and allow for more union organization. He has voted against a free trade proposal, CAFTA, but supported normalizing trade relations with China.

Environment
Leahy has been a strong supporter of environmental policy. He has supported bills that would increase hydrogen car production, uphold Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, set a goal of reducing oil consumption by 40 percent in 2025, and increase solar and wind power funding.

Climate change
In 2011, Leahy voted against limiting EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. In 2013, he voted against a concurrent resolution creating a point of order which would make it harder for Congress to put a price on carbon. In 2015, he voted in support of Obama's Clean Power Plan. On his Climate Change page, he states that "human activity, since the Industrial Revolution, has contributed, in large part, to the changes in climate." He has supported the establishment of greenhouse gas tradeable allowances and has spoken out against the use of ethanol as a solution to rising gasoline prices.

In June 2017, after President Trump announced the US would withdraw from the Paris Agreement, Leahy called the move a "great leap backward", adding that pandering "to a handful of billionaires and special interests would impose huge harm upon our generation, upon future generations, and upon our fragile planet." He said he intended "to ensure that this stroke of the president's pen does not derail Vermonters' hard work and leadership to protect our communities from climate risk, and that it does not deter the entrepreneurs and innovators in Vermont and other states who are expanding the world markets for the clean green energy and conservation technologies that will shape our future."

In February 2019, in response to reports that the EPA intended to decide against setting limits for perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) in drinking water, as part of an upcoming national strategy to manage the chemicals, Leahy was one of 20 senators to sign a letter to Acting EPA Administrator, Andrew R. Wheeler, calling on the agency "to develop enforceable federal drinking water standards for PFOA and PFOS, as well as institute immediate actions to protect the public from contamination from additional per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)".

Pipelines
In October 2016, Leahy was one of five senators to sign a letter to President Obama requesting that the administration halt work on the Dakota Access Pipeline, until the permitting process of the Army Corps could "be transparent and include public notice and participation, formal and meaningful tribal consultation, and adequate environmental review", and stating their support for the "tribes along the pipeline route in their fight against the Dakota Access pipeline project".

First Amendment
Leahy spoke strongly against a proposed constitutional ban on flag burning and on its implications for freedom of speech and expression. He rejects school prayer initiatives.

Gun control
Leahy has supported gun control, including requiring background checks at gun shows and allowing for lawsuits against firearms manufacturers. He voted in favor of prohibiting foreign and UN aid that inhibits gun ownership.

In January 2019, Leahy was one of 40 senators to introduce the Background Check Expansion Act, a bill that would require background checks for either the sale or transfer of all firearms, including unlicensed sellers. Exceptions to the bill's background check requirement included transfers between members of law enforcement, loaning firearms for either hunting or sporting events on a temporary basis, giving firearms to members of one's immediate family, firearms being transferred as part of an inheritance, or giving a firearm to another person temporarily for immediate self-defense.

In February 2019, Leahy was one of 38 senators to sign a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham calling on him to "hold a hearing" on universal background checks and noting Graham's statement in the press that he "intended to have the Committee work on 'red flag' legislation and potentially also background checks, both actions" the senators indicated their support for.

Health care
Leahy has stated the importance of increasing the prevalence of public health care, during times of economic downturn. He voted to increase Medicare benefits and to allow this organization to negotiate lower-priced, bulk prescriptions from pharmaceutical manufacturers. Leahy has broken with Democratic leadership in supporting allowing states to make bulk drug purchases on their own, an idea he has characterized as an important short-term solution until Congress can agree on a similar proposal.

In a May 2012 speech on the Senate floor, Leahy advocated that Chief Justice John Roberts uphold the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act: "The conservative activism of recent years has not been good for the court. Given the ideological challenge to the Affordable Care Act and the extensive, supportive precedent, it would be extraordinary for the Supreme Court not to defer to Congress in this matter that so clearly affects interstate commerce."

In March 2017, after House Republicans withdrew the American Health Care Act, Leahy released a statement touting the accomplishments of the Affordable Care Act and charging Republicans with trying to undo the record with a bill that was really "a massive tax cut for the wealthiest Americans".

In September 2017, Leahy was one of 16 senators to co-sponsor the Medicare for All Act, introduced by his fellow Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, which would establish a single-payer healthcare system in the United States.

In December 2018, Leahy was one of 42 senators to sign a letter to Trump administration officials Alex Azar, Seema Verma, and Steve Mnuchin arguing that the administration was improperly using Section 1332 of the Affordable Care Act to authorize states to "increase health care costs for millions of consumers while weakening protections for individuals with pre-existing conditions". The senators requested the administration withdraw the policy and "re-engage with stakeholders, states, and Congress".

In February 2019, Leahy and 22 other Democratic senators introduced the State Public Option Act, a bill that would authorize states to form a Medicaid buy-in program for all residents and thereby grant them the ability to buy into a state-driven Medicaid health insurance plan if they wished. Brian Schatz, a bill cosponsor, said the legislation would "unlock each state's Medicaid program to anyone who wants it, giving people a high-quality, low-cost public health insurance option" and that its goal was "to make sure that every single American has comprehensive health care coverage".

Immigration
In February 2018, after the Supreme Court declined to immediately consider the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, Leahy said that Congress should have acted on immigration reform the previous year, and urged Congress to act, while admitting the Supreme Court decision had reduced pressure to pass legislation quickly.

In June 2018, Leahy, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Joni Ernst wrote a letter to United States Defense Secretary James Mattis saying they were "deeply troubled by the department's decision to send 21 active and reserve JAGs to the border on temporary orders to prosecute immigration cases", expressing the view that dispatching "twenty-one trial counsel from military courtrooms to prosecute immigration cases is an inappropriate misapplication of military personnel", and urging Mattis to maintain the military lawyers within the military justice system.

In August 2018, Leahy was one of 17 senators to sign a letter to United States Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen demanding that the Trump administration take immediate action in attempting to reunite 539 migrant children with their families, citing each passing day of inaction as intensifying "trauma that this administration has needlessly caused for children and their families seeking humanitarian protection".

In September 2018, after nearly $10 million of the Federal Emergency Management Agency budget was transferred to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Leahy said in a statement, "I am hopeful that the administration will see the consequences of its actions and begin to work with Republicans AND Democrats to actually address the problems in our immigration system. Fomenting fears against immigrants is not governing—it's demagoguery on the taxpayer's dime. It needs to stop now."

In January 2019, Leahy was one of 20 senators to sponsor the Dreamer Confidentiality Act, a bill banning the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from passing information collected on DACA recipients to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Department of Justice, or any other law enforcement agency with exceptions in the case of fraudulent claims, national security issues, or non-immigration related felonies.

In July 2019, following reports that the Trump administration intended to cease protecting spouses, parents and children of active-duty service members from deportation, Leahy was one of 22 senators, led by Tammy Duckworth, to sign a letter arguing that the protection gave service members the ability "to fight for the United States overseas and not worry that their spouse, children, or parents will be deported while they are away" and that its termination would both cause service members personal hardship and negatively affect their combat performance.

Internet privacy
In April 2017, after President Trump signed a law undoing a Federal Communications Commission rule requiring internet service providers to obtain their customers' permission to sell their data to advertisers, Leahy was one of 11 senators to sponsor legislation undoing the repeal and reinstating the regulations.

Iran
In May 2018, Leahy was one of 12 senators to sign a letter to Trump urging him not to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, on the grounds that "Iran could either remain in the agreement and seek to isolate the United States from our closest partners, or resume its nuclear activities" if the U.S. pulled out and that both possibilities "would be detrimental to our national security interests".

Israel
Leahy has signed resolutions in support of Israel's right to self-defense, but has also been critical of alleged human rights violations in the region, especially after the 2008 Operation Cast Lead.

In 2011, Leahy initially promoted a bill to cut the military aid to three elite IDF units after reports of human rights violations during the Gaza flotilla raid and in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In February 2016, Leahy joined ten House of Representatives members asking the State Department to investigate suspected human rights violations by Egyptian and Israeli security forces, in particular citing claims of extrajudicial killings that could trigger the Leahy Law, which can cause the suspension of American military aid to countries guilty of such abuses.

In April 2019, after the Trump administration refused to distribute money to West Bank and Gaza "because of perceived intransigence on peace talks by the Palestinians and payments to the families of those who have attacked Israelis", Leahy was one of six Democratic senators to introduce a resolution restoring U.S. humanitarian aid to the West Bank and Gaza.

In May 2020, Leahy voiced his opposition to Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied Palestinian territories.

Opioids
In March 2017, Leahy was one of 21 senators, led by Ed Markey, to sign a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that said that 12% of adult Medicaid beneficiaries had some form of a substance abuse disorder, that one-third of treatment for opioid and other substance use disorders in the U.S. is financed by Medicaid, and that the American Health Care Act could "very literally translate into a death spiral for those with opioid use disorders" due to inadequate funding, often resulting in individuals abandoning substance use disorder treatment.

LGBTQIA+ issues
In October 2018, Leahy was one of 20 senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging him to reverse the rolling back of a policy that granted visas to same-sex partners of LGBTQIA+ diplomats who had unions that were not recognized by their home countries, writing that too many places around the world have seen LGBTQIA+ individuals "subjected to discrimination and unspeakable violence, and receive little or no protection from the law or local authorities", and that refusing to let LGBTQIA+ diplomats bring their partners to the US would be equivalent of upholding "the discriminatory policies of many countries around the world". Leahy supported the Student Non-Discrimination Act and supported an LGBTQIA+-supportive amendment in the Runaway and Homeless Youth and Trafficking Prevention Act; the former addresses bullying based on gender identity and sexual orientation, while the latter prevents shelters from discriminating based on the same. Leahy claims that both of these issues disproportionately impact the LGBTQIA+ community.

North Korea
In June 2018, Leahy was one of seven Democrats to sign a letter cautioning Trump that they would not support lifting sanctions against North Korea unless a nuclear agreement between it and the US met five standards outlined in the letter. In a statement after the North Korea–United States summit, Leahy commended Trump "for beginning direct negotiations" but added that it was troubling that Trump "agreed to unilaterally halt military exercises with South Korea without verifiable commitments from North Korea to denuclearize, while giving Kim the recognition he has long craved."

Russia
In December 2010, Leahy voted for the ratification of New START, a nuclear arms reduction treaty between the United States and the Russian Federation obliging both countries to have no more than 1,550 strategic warheads and 700 launchers deployed during the next seven years, and providing for a continuation of on-site inspections that halted when START I expired the previous year. It was the first arms treaty with Russia in eight years.

In February 2017, Leahy was one of 11 senators to sign a letter to United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions expressing their concern "about credible allegations that the Trump campaign, transition team, and Administration has colluded with the Russian government, including most recently the events leading to the resignation of Lieutenant General Michael Flynn as National Security Adviser". The senators requested the creation of "an independent Special Counsel to investigate collusion with the Russian government by General Flynn and other Trump campaign, transition and Administrative officials", in order to maintain "the confidence, credibility and impartiality of the Department of Justice".

Other issues
Leahy has consistently voted to uphold Social Security and has opposed school vouchers.

Leahy supported Joe Biden's plan to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

Honors and awards
In 2013, Leahy received the annual U.S. Senator John Heinz Award for Greatest Public Service by an Elected or Appointed Official from the Jefferson Awards for Public Service. In 2014, the Congressional Management Foundation awarded Leahy a "Silver Mouse Award" for his website, and a "Gold Mouse Award" for his engagement on social media.

Leahy is the recipient of several honorary degrees, including:

After Leahy retired from the Senate in 2023, Mayor Miro Weinberger announced that Burlington International Airport would be renamed for Leahy. Leahy expressed gratitude following the announcement, saying, "I am gratified that the airport where I took my first flight as a teenager is now well-positioned for Vermont's future."
 * Saint Michael's College, LL.D., 1976
 * Middlebury College, LL.D., 2011
 * Albany College of Pharmacy, D.Sc., 2013
 * Green Mountain College, LL.D., 2014
 * University of Portland, D.P.S., 2023

In 2023 he was awarded an Honorary OBE from British Government for services to UK/USA relations.

Family
Leahy married Marcelle Pomerleau in 1962. Her parents, Louis Philippe Pomerleau and Cecile Bouchard Pomerleau, emigrated to the United States from Quebec, and she is bilingual (English and French). The extended Pomerleau family established several successful Vermont businesses, and includes her uncle Antonio Pomerleau (d. 2018), a prominent real estate developer and philanthropist. Marcelle Leahy graduated from the nursing school at Burlington's former DeGoesbriand Hospital. She is a registered nurse and has worked at hospitals in Burlington, Washington, D.C., and Arlington, Virginia. The Leahys have resided in a farmhouse in Middlesex, Vermont, since moving from Burlington, and have three children. Their daughter Alicia is the wife of White House photographer Lawrence Jackson. In 2012, they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, with Leahy saying, "We hate it when we're apart from one another." They celebrated their 60th anniversary in August 2022, which was acknowledged by Chuck Grassley when he offered a tribute to Leahy on the Senate floor in December.

Health
On January 26, 2021, Leahy was hospitalized "out of an abundance of caution" after feeling ill. His hospitalization occurred hours after he had been sworn in as the presiding officer for Trump's second impeachment trial. He returned home later the same day.

On June 29, 2022, Leahy fractured his hip after falling at his home in McLean, Virginia. He underwent hip replacement surgery the next day, and had a second operation related to his hip injury on July 19, 2022.

Leahy was hospitalized again on October 13, 2022, after feeling unwell. He was kept overnight for "tests and observation" and discharged the following day.

Other
Leahy is a published photographer and author. He is a Roman Catholic and attends Saint Andrew's Church in Waterbury, Vermont. He also attends Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Washington, D.C.

Comic book fan
Leahy is a fan of comic books, and in particular the character Batman. He wrote the foreword to The Dark Knight Archives, Volume 1 (a 1992 collection of the first four Batman comic books), the preface essay for Batman: Death of Innocents (a 1996 graphic novel about the horrors of landmines), and the introduction to Green Arrow: The Archer's Quest (a single-volume collection of a six-issue story arc).

Leahy has also made several cameo appearances in Batman television episodes and films, beginning with an uncredited cameo in Batman Forever (1995). He voiced a territorial governor in the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Showdown" (1995), appeared as himself in the film Batman & Robin (1997), and appeared twice in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy as a Wayne Enterprises board member. In The Dark Knight (2008) he appeared as a fundraiser guest who confronts the Joker. In The Dark Knight Rises (2012), he defended the legacy of the Wayne family against attempts to usurp the company by industrialist John Daggett. Leahy also appeared in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, playing Senator Purrington, in a scene set during Superman's Senate hearing which is subsequently destroyed by an explosion.

All royalties and fees from Leahy's roles are donated to charities, primarily the Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Vermont, where he learned to read as a child.

UVM distinguished fellow
In March 2023, the University of Vermont (UVM) announced that Leahy had joined the university as a president's distinguished fellow. In this position, he participates in research and academic and engagement projects he initiated while in the Senate. He has also been assigned roles as an advisor and mentor to students and faculty members, a classroom guest lecturer, and a university representative at public events. In addition, he serves as liaison between UVM and organizations and communities throughout Vermont.

In May 2023, UVM announced that it had named its Honors College for Leahy. The Honors College was founded in 2004, and is intended to host original research, innovative teaching, and student-faculty collaborations. It stresses the importance of experiential learning as a way to aid students in developing into original thinkers and compassionate leaders.

In August 2023, UVM announced that Leahy had donated his personal Senate papers. The collection of about 1,000 boxes and approximately 20 terabytes of data, will be part of UVM's Jack and Shirley Silver Special Collections Library. After sorting and cataloguing, the Leahy Papers will be available to students, faculty, and the public.

title: Patrick Leahy


text:
Talk:0s

Untitled
How can there be "the 0s" there was no zero year; the calendar went from 1 BC to AD 1? SableSynthesis 08:57, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

"0s" = {1, ..., 10}, "10s" = {11, ..., 20} and so on? I don't know, that whole 2000/2001 millenium thing confused the hell out of me :) Dysprosia 08:59, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Presumably the 10s are different than the 2nd decade (the 10s being 10-19, the second decade being 11-20) at least if we follow the format used for centuries (e.g. the 1500s [1500-1599] or the 16th century [1501-1600]). But it seems silly to call the years 1-9 the 0s when there is no zero year. If you really want to know more about the 2000/2001 thing leave a note on my talk page. Thanks SableSynthesis 09:03, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

 * Hm, well, I'm not too good with these years business. As to your kind offer: thanks, but my brain's already starting to hurt! :) I mean in all difference, what's a year's difference between friends, eh? :) Dysprosia 09:06, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

 * Yeah, I guess it's consistant in form with the other decades, and it makes more sense than calling it the '1s'--although, the 'units' might not be a bad term ;-). SableSynthesis 09:25, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

This thing is a farce. A decade contains 10 years and it starts from 1 to 10. Most people make the mistake to assume that "1970" or "1990" is the start of a decade; when in fact it is the end of a decade. Please get the facts straight. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.132.132.37 (talk • contribs) 21:02, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

 * This is exactly right. The definition of "decade" says that it's the period of ten years and still the first decade has only nine years! This makes absolutely no sense at all. Antti29 (talk) 22:59, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

 * This is exactly wrong. Any decade, century, or millennium that is named with a year followed by an s begins with the year it is named after. The 10s contains 10-19, not 20. The 0s and 0s BC are the only exceptions, due to the lack of the year 0, because of the primitive Roman mathematics of the 1st millennium. On the other hand, centuries and millenniums that are ordinal, begin with a "1" and end with a "0" year, because there is no year 0. Decades are rarely if ever referred to ordinally. If they were, the 1st decade would be 1-10, and the 200th decade would be 1991-2000. But since we are referred to a set of 0-9, NOT 1-0, we use a year followed by an s. There are two ways, the way you are thinking of is simply NOT used in decade. ordinal and cardinal years are one year apart. 98.209.18.176 (talk) 17:26, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I believe there is no clear or universal definition for this specific case. Both 1-9 AD and 1-10 AD are used sometimes. --Monteps (talk) 22:49, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

 * We use 1-9, per consensus. That others (who don't normally use the term "0s") may use 1-10 doesn't affect our article.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 23:11, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

 * I understand what you mean, i.e. the main content of article will follow the 1-9 convention. However, the other one should also be mentioned in the article intro as well (so that readers will know there are other usages too), even though it won't affect the main content. --Monteps (talk) 23:21, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

 * If we can find a source for the concept of 1st decade actually being used, we probably should distinguish that article from this topic in the lede. Must go now.  We'll discuss this later.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 23:37, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

 * I see. But there is probably no need for a separate article, as for example in the 2000s and 2010s articles, there are sections named "Names for the decade" to discuss the usage of the names and so on. --Monteps (talk) 00:22, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

"Ostalk" ?
Why not keep it simple? We count by tens and twenties; and it's quite possible to describe the early or late years of a certain decade by number. I'm much in favor of avoiding the "O" or first "Os" of existence in order to describe clearly what time and/or where in time the so-called quantum is meaningful. Just wondering... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Moonwatcher~enwiki (talk • contribs) 05:44, 28 January 2005 (UTC)

Above line was added by someone besides me without signature.

Keeping it simple means to stop using the "zero" decade stuff. It really is quite simple:

The problem only comes when people try to count years like miles on an odometer. They forget there was no year zero.

When we say the year is "2009" or "2010," what we really say is that we are "in the year [of our Lord] 2009" or "in the year [of our Lord] 2010." See an example here: http://topics.law.cornell.edu/constitution/signers Bob (talk) 07:25, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

 * While it makes sense to say that the 1920s consist of the years 1920-29, the third decade of the twentieth century must be 1921-30. Likewise the first decade of the 1st century was -- in terms of our current calendar -- 1-10. This difference is somewhat confusing, but certain unless the first century A.D. is treated as consisting of 99 years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rwood128 (talk • contribs) 01:53, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

(User talk:SonicTV64) March 5, 2016 Most people say that the decade starts in 0 when jesus was born but jesus was born somewhwere 7-4 BC. The real method that only few people understand it this decade is the 202nd decade starts 2011 and will end in 2020 (not 2010-2019).

Stop calling the decade 0s and 1-9 is not a decade. Why does people not understand this kind of thing? — Preceding unsigned comment added by SonicTV64 (talk • contribs) 07:15, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Page move?
I would like to propose to move this page to 1st decade. That would make more sense than this current version with its 9-year decade, although it will overlap with 10s at 10. - Nat Krause 04:49, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

You cannot make a 9 year decade. That doesn't make any sense and people should change that and actually the 1st decade starts in 1 and ends in 10.

 * The problem is that people commonly refer to decades as "the 1970s", etc., instead of in a manner consistently with centuries and millennia. *Dan* 14:05, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

 * That's true, but my point is that we should not feel bound to maintain uniformity in cases where it is confusing or unclear. It's very normal to say "the 1970s" or just "the 70s", but nobody says "the 0s". I think 1st decade is a little clearer. 1st decade AD would be even more clear. - Nat Krause 15:27, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

 * People don't have all that much occasion to refer in any manner to dates in the 1st century (AD or BC) in everyday conversation, but if you do need to refer to them, it makes some sense to do it in a manner consistent with how more-commonly-used dates are done. *Dan* 16:52, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

To cut down confusion, a decade must be referred to in a manner like a century. When you say the 20th century, you mean the years 1901-2000; the 1900s means the years 1900-1999. Therefore, when you say the 200th decade, you mean the years 1991-2000; the 1990s means the years 1990-1999. In the example used above, the 1970s are 1970-1979, and the 198th decade is 1971-1980. Making the page move requested is appropriate, and all the decades must move--not just the years 1-10 to the 1st decade. Bob (talk) 07:41, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

But you can say Dec 31, 1990 - Dec 31, 2000 a decade and that is my opinion (User talk:SonicTV64) — Preceding unsigned comment added by SonicTV64 (talk • contribs) 07:27, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Sanra
i didnt realize he was born in 0 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.197.255.21 (talk) 05:25, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

First decade
The introduction to the article states that "The 0s is usually considered the first decade of the 1st century and the 1st millennium". Is that really the case? I have never heard about that prior to reading this article. Is there a source for that claim? Otherwise it should probably be removed. 213.114.157.166 (talk) 15:55, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

 * I have now removed this statement. 213.114.157.166 (talk) 16:20, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Experimental transclusion / formatting
As explained on Talk:AD 1 I'm experimenting with transclusions of the births and deaths from individual year pages to decades pages, in order to populate them and avoid duplication of effort by editors. The reason I don't want to repeat section headers is that there are typically very few births and deaths per year in this part of history, so that we keep just a decade-wide "Births" and "Deaths" entry in the TOC. If we reduce the TOC level instead, then we lose the detail of events by years, which have more content including subsections. Hence pseudo-headers are an appropriate solution here. — JFG talk 21:24, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Controversy regarding this decade
The 0s is not a proper decade because the purists are correct that is has 9 years in it rather than 10, but this is creating confusion. I can't tell if 0s is the first decade of the AD system or if the 10s decade is. Can someone clear this up for me? Iamthemostwanted2015 (talk) 20:50, 22 April 2017 (UTC)Iamthemostwanted2015
 * It is actually rather simple. Neither of them is the first decade. 0s isn't because it is not a decade in the first place (since it has nine years) and 10s isn't since it starts 9 years late. The first decade of the AD system is the period of time from year 1 to year 10 which as far as I know don't have a dedicated Wikipedia article. The reason why there is no such article is because it has been decided that unlike centuries and millennia which have been given ordinal articles, decades are given articles in another way. This is because decades are usually refereed to in a different way (such as for example the 90s).Andreaseksted (talk) 21:49, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Actually, the first decade AD is ten years and not only nine. The tenth and last year in the 1st decade is year 10; at the end of year 9 it had not passed ten years since the beginning of the common era (which began in the start of year 1 as 1 was the first year).
 * The first decade of the 21st century is supposed to be counted from year 2001 to (the end of) year 2010, just as the 2nd millennium is supposed to be counted between (the start of) year 1001 and (the end of) year 2000, the 20th century/2nd millennium didn't end in 1999, because in the end of year 1999, it had not passed two thousand years. 212.100.101.104 (talk) 11:00, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Any words with 0s stuffs in it should be called an era instead of a decade and I would say the "Zeroes" are in 1900-1909 because 20th Century barely starts the 0s stuffs and the 2000-2009 are called the "Noughties" Era to not confused the two-thousands and the year 2000 also could be known as the "Thousands" Era. 2010-2019 era should be the "Tenties", the "Twenty-Tens" or the "Teenies". The decades should be in the ordinal articles instead of confusing with the 0s cardinal articles because of many people forgot them these days and 2000-2009 doesn't qualify as the first decade of the millennium, it is the the "Noughties" Era that were mainly been around in the 21st Century. Any Decade periods must be only contain by one century, not two.SonicTV64 (talk) 20:42, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Category:Decades
See WT:YEARS for discussion of whether this quasi-article should be in Category:Decades. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:32, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

This hurts if you are mathematically minded.
Following this logic there wasn't a first century either as it was only 99 years, nor a first millennium as it was only 999 years. Lerner (talk) 19:03, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

I asked the writers of timeanddate.com about the existence of this 9-year decade, here's the response:
Reply went as follows: "As mentioned on https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/decade.html, we see decades whose name and scope are based on year numbers (e.g., the twenties), at least primarily, as a social and linguistic construct designed to enable people to categorize and talk about longer time spans. As such, we believe that these types of decades are indeed fairly flexible and it is not wrong as such to define "the twenties" as running from 2020 to 2029 although the 203rd decade begins in 2021.  By extension, we agree with Wikipedia here that it's not wrong to have a "decade" that lasts only 9 years (although, to be precise, it is of course wrong to call it a "decade")."

Koopinator (talk) 12:53, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

On the pardoning of Gnaeus Cornelius Cinna Magnus
This article states that Gnaeus Cornelius Cinna Magnus was pardoned in AD 4. He was in fact pardoned around 16BC, during Augustus' abscence in Gaul. Both Seneca the Younger (De Clementia 1.9) and Cassius Dio (55.14-22) document the fable of his pardoning to occur at around this time. Even despite the sources, I find it hard to believe Augustus would allow Cinna to become consul in AD 5 if Cinna was planning to kill him the year prior. This information is incorrect. MyHeadHZ (talk) 14:51, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

 * Well, that wasn't actually from this article, rather from the AD 4 article which is parsed onto this one. Regardless, I have removed the information as it was uncited anyway. Koopinator (talk) 16:55, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you. MyHeadHZ (talk) 17:23, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:0s


text:
Lisa Murkowski

Lisa Ann Murkowski (born May 22, 1957) is an American attorney and politician serving as the senior United States senator representing Alaska, having held that seat since 2002. She is the first woman to represent Alaska in the Senate and the Senate's second-most senior Republican woman, after Susan Collins of Maine. She became dean of Alaska's congressional delegation upon Representative Don Young's death.

Murkowski is the daughter of former U.S. senator and governor of Alaska Frank Murkowski. Before her appointment to the Senate, she served in the Alaska House of Representatives and was elected majority leader. She was controversially appointed to the Senate by her father, who resigned his seat in December 2002 to become governor of Alaska. She completed her father's unexpired Senate term, which ended in January 2005, and became the first Alaskan-born member of Congress.

Murkowski ran for and won a full term in 2004. After losing the 2010 Republican primary to Tea Party candidate Joe Miller, she ran as a write-in candidate and defeated both Miller and Democrat Scott McAdams in the general election. She is the second U.S. senator (after Strom Thurmond in 1954) to be elected by write-in vote. She was elected to a third term in 2016 and a fourth term in 2022, running as a Republican.

Murkowski was vice chair of the Senate Republican Conference from 2009 to 2010, chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee from 2015 to 2021, and has been vice chair of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee since 2021.

She is often described as one of the Senate's most moderate Republicans, and a crucial swing vote. According to CQ Roll Call, she voted with President Barack Obama's position 72.3% of the time in 2013, one of only two Republicans to do so over 70% of the time. In recent years, she opposed Brett Kavanaugh and supported Ketanji Brown Jackson in their respective nominations to the Supreme Court. On February 13, 2021, she was one of seven Republican senators to vote to convict Donald Trump of incitement of insurrection in his second impeachment trial, for which she was censured by the Alaska Republican Party. In 2024, when asked if she intended to remain a Republican, Murkowski replied that she was "independently minded". Asked whether that meant she might drop her party affiliation, she responded: "I am navigating my way through some very interesting political times. Let's just leave it at that."

Early life, education, and early career
Murkowski was born in Ketchikan in the Territory of Alaska, the daughter of Nancy Rena (née Gore) and Frank Murkowski. Her paternal great-grandfather was of Polish descent, and her mother's ancestry is Irish and French Canadian. As a child, she and her family moved around the state with her father's job as a banker.

She earned a B.A. degree in economics from Georgetown University in 1980, the same year her father was elected to the U.S. Senate. She is a member of Pi Beta Phi sorority and represented Alaska as the 1980 Cherry Blossom Princess. She received her J.D. degree in 1985 from Willamette University College of Law.

Murkowski worked as an attorney in the Anchorage District Court Clerk's office from 1987 to 1989. From 1989 to 1998, she was an attorney in private practice in Anchorage. She served on the Mayor's Task Force for the Homeless from 1990 to 1991.

Alaska House of Representatives
In 1998, Murkowski was elected to the Alaska House of Representatives. Her District 18 included northeast Anchorage, Fort Richardson and Elmendorf Air Force Base (now Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, or JBER), and suburban parts of Eagle River-Chugiak. In 1999, she introduced legislation establishing a Joint Armed Services Committee. She was reelected in 2000 and, after her district boundaries changed, in 2002. That year she had a conservative primary opponent, Nancy Dahlstrom, who challenged her because Murkowski supported abortion rights and rejected conservative economics. Murkowski prevailed by 56 votes. She was named as House Majority Leader for the 2003–04 legislative session. She resigned her House seat before taking office, due to her appointment by her father to the seat he had vacated in the U.S. Senate, upon his stepping down to assume the Alaska governorship. Murkowski sat on the Alaska Commission on Post Secondary Education and chaired both the Labor and Commerce and the Military and Veterans Affairs Committees. After she resigned to join the U.S. Senate, her father appointed Dahlstrom, the District Republican committee's choice, as her replacement.

Appointment
In December 2002, Murkowski—while a member of the state House—was appointed by her father, Governor Frank Murkowski, to fill his own U.S. Senate seat made vacant when he resigned from the Senate after being elected governor.

The appointment caused controversy in Alaska. Many voters disapproved of the nepotism. Her appointment eventually resulted in a referendum that stripped the governor of his power to directly appoint replacement senators. Along with others eligible to be considered, future Alaska governor Sarah Palin interviewed unsuccessfully for the seat.

Elections
Murkowski has had several close challenges but has never lost an election. She has won four full terms to the Senate; she won 48.6% of the vote in 2004, 39.5% in 2010, 44.4% in 2016 and 53.7% in 2022.

2004
Murkowski ran for a full Senate term against former Governor Tony Knowles in the 2004 election after winning a primary challenge by a large margin. She was considered vulnerable due to the controversy over her appointment, and polling showed the race was very close. The centrist Republican Main Street Partnership, which wanted to run TV ads for Murkowski, was told no airtime was left to buy. Near the end of the campaign, senior U.S. Senator Ted Stevens shot ads for Murkowski and claimed that if a Democrat replaced Murkowski, Alaska would likely receive fewer federal dollars. Murkowski defeated Knowles by a narrow margin.

2010
Murkowski faced the most difficult election of her career in the August 24, 2010, Republican Party primary election against Joe Miller, a former U.S. magistrate judge supported by former Governor Sarah Palin. The initial results showed her trailing Miller, 51–49%, with absentee ballots yet to be tallied. After the first round of absentee ballots were counted on August 31, Murkowski conceded, saying that she did not believe that Miller's lead could be overcome in the next round of absentee vote counting.

After the primary, the Murkowski campaign floated the idea of her running as a Libertarian in the general election. But on August 29, 2010, the state Libertarian Party executive board voted not to consider Murkowski as its Senate nominee.

On September 17, 2010, Murkowski said that she would mount a write-in campaign for the Senate seat. Her campaign was aided in large part by substantial monetary assistance from Native corporations and PACs, as well as state teachers' and firefighters' unions.

On November 17, 2010, the Associated Press reported that Murkowski had become only the second Senate candidate (after Strom Thurmond in 1954) to win a write-in campaign, thereby retaining her seat. She emerged victorious after a two-week count of write-in ballots showed she had overtaken Miller. Miller did not concede. U.S. Federal District Judge Ralph Beistline granted an injunction to stop the certification of the election due to "serious" legal issues and irregularities Miller raised about the hand count of absentee ballots. On December 10, 2010, an Alaskan judge dismissed Miller's case, clearing the way for Murkowski, but on December 13, Miller appealed the Alaska Superior Court decision of the previous week to the Alaska Supreme Court. The state Supreme Court rejected Miller's appeal on December 22. On December 28, U.S. District Judge Ralph Beistline dismissed Miller's lawsuit. Governor Sean Parnell certified Murkowski as the winner on December 30.

2016
After securing the Republican Party nomination by a wide margin, Murkowski was again reelected to the Senate in 2016. Joe Miller, this time the Libertarian Party nominee, was again the runner-up.

The election was unusual in featuring a Libertarian Party nominee who endorsed the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, running against a Republican incumbent who did not. The Libertarian vice-presidential nominee, former Governor of Massachusetts Bill Weld, endorsed Murkowski, citing Miller's support for Trump and "devoted social conservative" views as incompatible with libertarianism.

2022
In 2017, Murkowski filed to run for a fourth term in 2022. Due to her opposition to some of his initiatives and her vote to convict him during his second impeachment trial, former President Donald Trump pledged in June 2020 to campaign against Murkowski, implicitly endorsing a primary challenge in the process. Of the seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump, Murkowski was the only one up for reelection in 2022. After the second impeachment trial, Alaska's GOP had censured her and demanded her resignation. Despite Trump's pledge, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell signaled Republican senators' commitment to back Murkowski's 2022 campaign.

On June 18, 2021, Trump endorsed former Alaska Department of Administration commissioner Kelly Tshibaka for the Senate in 2022, calling her "MAGA all the way". Murkowski later called Tshibaka "apparently...someone with a pulse", referencing Trump's previous statement that "if [any 2022 Murkowski challenger has] a pulse, [he is] with [them]". On July 10, 2021, the Alaska Republican Party endorsed Tshibaka. Murkowski won reelection by beating Tshibaka in ranked-choice voting. Murkowski's votes amounted to 53.7% after the ranked-choice tabulation.

Tenure and political positions
Murkowski is considered a moderate Republican. Since she was reelected in 2010, some have deemed her voting record "more moderate" than that of her previous years in the Senate. In 2013, the National Journal gave Murkowski a composite score of 56% conservative and 45% liberal and ranked her the 56th most liberal and 44th most conservative member of the Senate.

According to GovTrack, Murkowski is the second most liberal Republican senator and,, is placed by GovTrack's analysis to the left of all Republicans except Susan Collins, and to the left of Democratic Senator Joe Manchin. The New York Times arranged Republican senators by ideology and also ranked Murkowski the second most liberal Republican. According to FiveThirtyEight, which tracks congressional votes, she voted with Trump's position approximately 72.6% of the time. According to FiveThirtyEight, as of January 2023, Murkowski had voted with Biden's position about 67% of the time. According to CQ Roll Call, Murkowski voted with President Barack Obama's position 72.3% of the time in 2013, one of only two Republicans voting for his positions over 70% of the time. According to the American Conservative Union's Center for Legislative Accountability, Murkowski has a lifetime conservative score of 56.72. The liberal Americans for Democratic Action gave her a score of 10% in 2019.

In 2018, she voted "present" on the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court of the United States as a favor to Senator Steve Daines, who was unable to attend the vote because his daughter's wedding took place that day. In 2020, she voted against procedural motions to accelerate Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation to that court, though she later voted to confirm Barrett. On April 7, 2022, she voted to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, with only two other Republicans joining her: Mitt Romney and Susan Collins.

In a March 2019 op-ed for The Washington Post, Murkowski and Joe Manchin wrote that climate change debate in Congress was depicted as "an issue with just two sides—those who support drastic, unattainable measures to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, and those who want to do nothing" and affirmed their support for "adopting reasonable policies that maintain that edge, build on and accelerate current efforts, and ensure a robust innovation ecosystem."

During the first impeachment trial of Donald Trump, Murkowski called Trump's actions "shameful and wrong, but said "she cannot vote to convict" Trump and that his personal interests did not take precedence over those of the nation. She joined almost all Senate Republicans in voting to acquit Trump on both articles.

In December 2020, during his lame-duck period, Trump vetoed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021. The veto left new Coast Guard cutters that were scheduled to be homeported in Alaska without port facilities to maintain them. Murkowski issued a press release that said, in part, "It’s incredible that the President chose to veto the annual National Defense Authorization Act, particularly because his reason for doing so is an issue not related to national defense."

After Trump supporters attacked the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, Murkowski said Trump should resign for inciting the insurrection. With this call for his resignation, she became the first Republican in the Senate to say that Trump should leave office before the inauguration of Joe Biden. When asked whether she would remain a Republican, she replied, "if the Republican Party has become nothing more than the party of Trump, I sincerely question whether this is the party for me", but added, "I have absolutely no desire to move over to the Democratic side of the aisle. I can't be somebody that I'm not." On May 27, 2021, along with five other Republicans and all present Democrats, Murkowski voted to establish a bipartisan commission to investigate the Capitol attack. The vote failed for lack of 60 required "yes" votes. She was one of seven Republican senators to vote on February 13, 2021, to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial. That vote failed for lack of a two-thirds majority.

Murkowski, along with all other Senate and House Republicans, voted against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. On September 30, 2021, she was among the 15 Senate Republicans to vote with all Democrats and both Independents for a temporary spending bill to avoid a government shutdown. On October 7, 2021, Murkowski voted with 10 other Republicans and all members of the Democratic caucus to break the filibuster of raising the debt ceiling. However, she voted with all Republicans against the bill to raise the debt ceiling. On February 5, 2022, Murkowski joined Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson in condemning the Republican National Committee's censure of Representatives Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney for supporting and participating in the Select Committee of the U.S. House that was tasked with investigating the January 6 United States Capitol attack. The RNC contended that the Capitol riot was "legitimate political discourse." During her 2022 reelection campaign, Murkowski was supported by Democratic colleagues, including Jeanne Shaheen, and Independent Senator Angus King.

Murkowski supports the Equal Rights Amendment.

As of 2023, Murkowski supports ConocoPhillips's controversial Willow oil drilling project on North Slope Borough, Alaska.

Committee assignments

 * Committee on Appropriations
 * Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies
 * Subcommittee on Homeland Security
 * Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies (Ranking Member)
 * Subcommittee on Legislative Branch
 * Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies
 * Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
 * Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
 * Subcommittee on Children and Families
 * Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety
 * Committee on Indian Affairs (Vice Chair)

Caucus memberships

 * Senate Oceans Caucus (co-chairwoman)
 * Senate Cultural Caucus
 * Afterschool Caucuses
 * Senate Republican Conference
 * Senate Arctic Caucus (chairwoman)
 * Congressional Coalition on Adoption

Personal life
Murkowski is married to Verne Martell. They have two sons, Nicolas and Matthew. Murkowski is Roman Catholic.

As of 2018, according to OpenSecrets.org, Murkowski's net worth was more than $1.4 million.

Property sale controversy
In July 2007, Murkowski said she would sell back land she bought from Anchorage businessman Bob Penney, a day after a Washington watchdog group filed a Senate ethics complaint against her alleging that Penney sold the property well below market value. The Anchorage Daily News wrote, "The transaction amounted to an illegal gift worth between $70,000 and $170,000, depending on how the property was valued, according to the complaint by the National Legal and Policy Center." According to the Associated Press, Murkowski bought the land from two developers tied to the Ted Stevens probe.

In 2008, Murkowski amended her Senate financial disclosures for 2004 through 2006, adding income of $60,000 per year from the sale of a property in 2003, and more than $40,000 a year from the sale of her "Alaska Pasta Company" in 2005.

title: Lisa Murkowski