Dedicated servant
Toolbox
Published: June 28, 2009
Sen. Patrick Leahy announced his intention to run for a seventh term next year in an Obamaesque e-mail sent out last week. In his message he emphasized his service to Vermont and the leadership role he has assumed as one of the most senior members of the Senate.
After six terms Leahy has assumed a kind of monumental status in Vermont politics. He first won election when he ran in 1974 as the 34-year-old state's attorney from Chittenden County. He was replacing the iconic Vermont politician, George D. Aiken, whose independent Republican politics and folksy charm had made him a legend in Vermont and a respected figure in Washington.
It was a tough act to follow, and Leahy knew it. Though Leahy was never other than a liberal, he has constantly worked to avoid being pigeonholed politically, emphasizing his service to traditional Vermont values and his own roots in Montpelier. Voters have long heard about Leahy's fondness for his home in Middlesex. Gradually, Leahy has become, like the Bennington Battle Monument, an unassailable feature of the political landscape.
Now he is one of the leaders of the United States Senate. As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he is central to the process of confirming Supreme Court justices and other federal judges. President Obama is relying on him to shepherd through the confirmation process Sonia Sotomayor and those who will follow. And beyond those battles, Leahy is in a position to affect national policy in a beneficial way on numerous issues of criminal justice and law enforcement. He was thrilled by the election of Barack Obama and in a new term would be one of Obama's closest allies in the Senate.
Leahy has been a leading critic of the torture, spying and illegal detention practiced by the Bush administration and an outspoken advocate of the establishment of a truth commission to determine the scope of the misdeeds committed in the name of the war on terror. As such, he has become a lightning rod for criticism from Bush loyalists.
But Leahy's influence in Washington may only be growing. He is fourth in seniority in the Senate and in not so many years could become chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. It is one of the most powerful committees in the Senate, shaping the federal budget and determining policy. The three senators ahead of him in seniority are Robert Byrd, Daniel Inouye and Ted Kennedy. Byrd and Inouye are old, and Kennedy is ill. Seniority matters in the Senate, and Vermont would not suffer from want of federal aid if Leahy were to assume the chairmanship. It is worth considering the kinds of issues that Leahy has taken on over the years as a matter of choice. For a time he was chairman of the Agriculture Committee, establishing his bona fides with Vermont dairy farmers as a defender of their interests. That is the kind of self-interested politics that all senators keen on re-election practice.
But Leahy has taken on other issues. He has been a champion of efforts to combat land mines. He worked to establish the Patrick Leahy War Victims Fund to assist those around the world injured from unexploded ordnance, land mines and preventable diseases. Children around the world have the benefit of prosthetic limbs because of the fund Leahy founded. The Leahy Fund is the principal vehicle of USAID in responding to the needs of civilian war victims.
On the First Amendment Leahy has long championed freedom of information and openness in government. It may be because of his work in this area that the conservative columnist William Safire once referred to Leahy as the "best" senator.
Leahy's dedication to these issues shows that politics for him is not merely about self-interest. He has nothing to gain except the knowledge of the good he is doing from work serving distant war victims. He gains good press for his work on behalf of the First Amendment, but ordinary citizens, not just journalists, should thank him on that score. Leahy understands that he works within a flawed system, and there are times when he, too, is part of the problem. In order to defend the interests of dairy farmers, he goes along with policies benefiting other commodities that are wasteful and harmful to agriculture. But he has also been a defender and advocate of organic farming and rural development.
And yet for all of these achievements, Leahy may be something of a mystery to many Vermonters. He has fashioned a sturdy persona — his years as a prosecutor, his Vermont values, his Middlesex farm — that reveals little about the man. Those who know him say he is shy. He is also politically cautious; for all the power he has amassed he always worries about re-election.
He is the possessor of a puckish sense of humor that he uses to irritate or needle fellow senators. He and his staff were not shy about letting the world know when Vice President Cheney, on the floor of the Senate, used a common vulgarity to suggest that Leahy perform an anatomically unlikely sexual act. His persona includes his oddball affection for Spiderman and his fondness for the Grateful Dead, and also his ubiquitous camera, which he has used to good effect to photograph historic events and many exotic settings around the world.
The Republicans are not in a good position to defeat Leahy next year. Gov. James Douglas already ran against him once and lost (in 1992).
Leahy is no George Aiken. But he has become Patrick Leahy. In his early years he may not have been clear about what that would mean. But 35 years after his first election, it represents a dedication to human rights and humane values. And to Vermont, the state he loves.
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