{"id":537282,"date":"2021-05-22T13:40:25","date_gmt":"2021-05-22T17:40:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=537282"},"modified":"2021-05-22T14:05:22","modified_gmt":"2021-05-22T18:05:22","slug":"vermont-sen-patrick-leahy-poised-to-make-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/vermont-sen-patrick-leahy-poised-to-make-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy Poised to Make History"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fvermont-sen-patrick-leahy-poised-to-make-history%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=537282&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GetFile-109.aspx\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>When the word came out Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.,&nbsp;would seek reelection next year, historians and political junkies nationwide quickly took notice.<\/p>\n<p>Should Leahy, 81, win a ninth term, he would \u2013 in three years \u2013 become the longest-serving Senator in U.S. history.<\/p>\n<p>Some 46 years and four months after he became the Green Mountain State&#8217;s first and only Democrat senator (colleague Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.,&nbsp;is actually an independent who runs with Democrat&nbsp;endorsement), Leahy is the fifth-longest serving Senator in history.<\/p>\n<p>In another five months, he will overtake the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., for fourth place in terms of longevity in the Senate.<\/p>\n<p>The longest-serving senator is Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va. who&nbsp;served from 1959 until his death in 2010 (51 years, 5 months). He is followed by Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawaii,&nbsp;(49 years, 11 months), and South Carolina Democrat-turned-Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond (47 years, 5 months).<\/p>\n<p>Republicans, Democrats, and independents agree Leahy is also his state&#8217;s most powerful and influential senator. As president pro tempore of the Senate, he is third in line to the presidency and also serves as chairman of the all-powerful Appropriations Committee.<\/p>\n<p>That all seemed a pipe dream 46 years ago to the young Chittenden County State Attorney Leahy. His political mentor Phil Hoff, Vermont&#8217;s first Democrat governor, had named him to fill a vacancy in the prosecutorial post and Leahy went on to be elected on his own.<\/p>\n<p>Leahy wanted to be governor like his hero Hoff, but in 1972, Vermonters elected a second Democrat governor in Thomas Salmon. Two years later, Leahy ran for the open seat of the venerable Sen. George Aiken, R-Vt. In a major upset, he eked out a victory over Republican Rep.-at-large Richard Malary, considered Aiken&#8217;s heir apparent.<\/p>\n<p>Six years later, as Ronald Reagan was elected president in a landslide, Leahy faced a formidable challenger in centrist Republican and State Banking Commissioner Stewart Ledbetter. In the nation&#8217;s closest Senate race, Leahy was reelected by a wafer-thin 2,700 votes.<\/p>\n<p>He never had trouble at the polls since. A sign of his current standing is the stream of praise for Leahy from Vermont&#8217;s Republican Gov. Phil Scott, who inevitably tells reporters he has no interest in running for the Senate himself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When the word came out Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.,\u00a0would seek reelection next year, historians and political junkies nationwide quickly took notice. Should Leahy, 81, win a ninth term, he would &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2312701,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GetFile-109.aspx","fifu_image_alt":"Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy Poised to Make History","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-537282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GetFile-109.aspx","fifu_image_alt":"Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy Poised to Make History","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2312701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}