Warren Rudman

Infobox_Senator
name=Warren Bruce Rudman


imagesize=
jr/sr=United States Senator
state=New Hampshire
term_start=December 29, 1980
term_end=January 3, 1993
preceded=John A. Durkin
succeeded=Judd Gregg
date of birth=Birth date and age|1930|5|18|mf=y
place of birth=Boston, Massachusetts
date of death=
place of death=
spouse=Shirley Wahl
profession=Attorney
religion=Judaism
party=Republican

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Warren Bruce Rudman (born May 18, 1930 in Boston, Massachusetts) was an American Senator from New Hampshire. He was elected as a Republican in 1980 and re-elected in 1986, and was known as a pragmatic centrist, to such an extent that President Clinton approached him in 1994 about replacing departing Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen in Clinton's cabinet, an offer that Rudman declined.cite news |first=Michael| last=Duffy| title= Getting Out the Wreckking Ball |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,982008,00.html |publisher="Time Magazine" |date=December 19, 1994 |accessdate=2007-07-22 ]

Rudman chose not to run for re-election in 1992. He is now a retired partner in the international law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. He currently sits on the board of directors of Raytheon, Collins & Aikman, Allied Waste Corporation, Boston Scientific and a number of funds in the Dreyfus Family of Funds.

Biography

Rudman has lived his entire life in New Hampshire, with few exceptions. He attended the Valley Forge Military Academy boarding school in Wayne, PA. He received his undergraduate degree from Syracuse University, and served in the United States Army during the Korean War. He received his law degree from Boston College Law School in 1960, and was appointed attorney general of New Hampshire in 1970.From 2004 to 2006, Rudman also led a team of attorneys that investigated accounting practices at Fannie Mae.

Prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks, Sen. Rudman had served on a now oft-cited and praisedfact|date=July 2007 national panel investigating the threat of international terrorism. He, along with fellow former Senator Gary Hart (D-CO), chaired the panel, and both Rudman and Hart have been lauded since Sept. 11 for their prescient conclusions.fact|date=July 2007

Senator Rudman is an Advisory Board member and Co-Chair of the Partnership for a Secure America, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to recreating the bipartisan center in American national security and foreign policy.

Rudman is one of the few Jewish politicians elected in New Hampshire. He is currently a resident of Hollis, New Hampshire, a suburb of both Nashua and Boston (and one of New Hampshire's wealthiest communities).

enate career

Rudman served on the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Ethics Committee. His best-known legislative effort was the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act.

Rudman, along with John H. Sununu, was a key factor in the appointment of Rudman's personal friend, Supreme Court Justice David Souter, to both the federal circuit and the Supreme Court. "The Wall Street Journal" later editorialized about the appointment, saying: "Mr. Rudman, the man who helped put liberal jurist David Souter on the high court" and who in his "Yankee Republican liberalism" took "pride in recounting how he sold Mr. Souter to gullible White House chief of staff John Sununu as a confirmable conservative. Then they both sold the judge to President Bush, who wanted above all else to avoid a confirmation battle."cite news
title = Chief Justice Souter?
publisher = "Wall Street Journal"
date = 2000-02-29
url =
accessdate = 2008-06-27 ] Rudman wrote in his memoir that he had "suspected all along" that Souter would not "overturn activist liberal precedents."cite news
title = David Hackett Souter: Traditional Republican on the Rehnquist Court
author = Tinsley E. Yarbrough
publisher = Oxford University Press
date = 2005
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=mvV0cVeWVmUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=david+souter+%22home+run%22&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0
accessdate = 2008-06-27 ] Sununu later said, "In spite of it all, he's a good friend. But I've always known that he was more liberal than he liked the world to think he was."

Post-Senate years

After leaving the Senate, Rudman was twice considered as a possible Vice-Presidential candidate on the ticket of two parties other than the GOP. In 1996, Ross Perot offered him to be his running-mate on Reform Party ticket, but Rudman refused (as former Democratic Senator David Boren of Oklahoma did). [ [http://www-cgi.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/candidates/reform/choate/ AllPolitics - Reform Party - Pat Choate ] ] Perot eventually selected Pat Choate.

Also in 2004, Rudman was mentioned as possible running-mate for Democratic nominee, John Kerry. [ [http://slate.msn.com/id/2101383/ Kerry's long shortlist for vice president. - By Michael Crowley - Slate Magazine ] ] Kerry eventually selected John Edwards.

Rudman did accept Senator John McCain's offer to serve as campaign chair in McCain's 2000 presidential campaign.

References