People in the news

Christopher J. Dodd

Chairman, Motion Picture Association of America (since March 2011)

(Robert Giroux/
Getty Images)

Why He Matters

Dodd was practically born into politics. The five-term senator learned the ins-and-outs of elected life from his father, who was a lifelong Connecticut pol. But in the face of increasing unpopularity, he surprised the political world when he announced in January 2010 he would retire rather than seek reelection that year.

Dodd was named chairman of the Motion Picture Association of American in March 2011. The MPAA announced Dodd would start his new role as "Hollywood's top lobbyist" later that month.

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Background

At a Glance

Career History: U.S. Senator (1981-2011) U.S. Representative (1975 to 1981); Attorney (1972 to 1974)
Birthday: May 27, 1944
Hometown: East Haddam, Conn.
Alma Mater: Providence College, B.A., 1966; University of Louisville, J.D., 1972

Spouse: Jackie Marie Clegg
Religion: Roman Catholic
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Path To Power

Dodd was born in East Haadan, Conn. His father, Thomas Dodd, led the prosecution of the Nuremberg trials and was then elected to the House when Dodd was eight. Thomas Dodd ran for Senate in 1958.

After graduating from Providence College, Chris Dodd joined the Peace Corps and served in the Dominican Republic. During that time, Dodd's father was censured by the Senate for misusing campaign funds. Dodd read about the devastating event a few days later in a Spanish paper.

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After Democrats refused to nominate Dodd's father for re-election, he decided to run as an independent with his son as campaign manager. Dodd lost to Republican Lowell Weicker. Thomas Dodd died a year later of a heart attack, just hours after Dodd called to tell him he had made the Louisville Law Review.

Political Debut

Almost immediately after graduating from law school, Dodd ran for an open U.S. House seat. It was the year of Watergate, and Dodd easily defeated the Republican candidate.

In 1979, Dodd out-maneuvered fellow Democrats to win the nomination to succeed former Sen. Abraham Ribicoff (D-Conn.). He succeeded, becoming Connecticut's youngest Senator and taking over his father's old desk.

In 1994, Dodd ran for Senate minority leader, but lost to then-Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) by just one vote. He was then invited by Bill Clinton to serve as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Some state party leaders argued that Dodd was too liberal to serve the party, but he ably performed the job.

Dodd left the DNC in 1997, after accusations that he mishandled charges that a top DNC fundraiser had collected millions in illegal donations.

Presidential Candidacies

He considered running for president in 2004, but instead decided to back fellow Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman (I). After former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle's (D-Iowa) defeat, he set his sights again on the minority leader slot, but withdrew once it was clear Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) had the votes.

Dodd announced his candidacy for president in 2007, calling himself a "dark horse" with experience. He has served in Congress for 34 years, which would have marked more years on Capitol Hill than any president in history. But Dodd struggled to gain traction in a race swarming with bigger names. Dodd tried to gain momentum. He even moved his family to a house in Iowa, building his children a swing-set and enrolling his daughter in a local kindergarten.

But his campaign never developed real momentum, despite his efforts. He dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucus, and endorsed Barack Obama soon afterwards.

Dodd announced that he was being vetted by Obama for the vice presidential pick though many speculated this was a favor to Dodd and that he was not being seriously considered.

Dodd has been re-elected to his Senate seat by wide margins. In 1998, he beat his opponent with 65 percent of the vote. In 2004, he faced fashion entrepreneur Jack Orchulli. Orchulli spent millions of his own money, but it didn't help. Dodd won 66 to 32 percent.

Political Troubles and Retirement

Dodd's popularity in his home state began to droop at the end of 2007, when he moved his family from Connecticut to Iowa in the hopes of kick-starting his presidential campaign. His numbers took yet another hit when, in June 2008, Portfolio magazine reported that Dodd along with other politicians had received mortgage loans at noncompetitive rates from Countrywide. Dodd said he had not known he was getting discounted rates.

But his role in the September 2008 financial crisis may have been the nail in Dodd's coffin. As chair of the Senate Banking Committee during one of the worst banking crises in American history, many asked why he had not insisted upon stronger oversight of the financial industry. The government's response, a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street that Dodd helped draft and implement, seemed unscrupulous in the wake of the populist tremor that ran through America in the crisis's aftermath.

Ex-Rep. Rob Simmons (R-Conn.) joined the Connecticut race early, and polled strongly against Dodd throughout 2009. Democrats said they would stand by their incumbent, and his numbers rose slightly in the summer of 2009, when he took over a key role in the health-reform debates after the death of his friend and ally Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

In July 2009, Dodd was diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer. He told reporters that the disease was caught early and that he expected to make a full recovery.

In January 2010, Dodd announced he would not run for re-election in 2010, and would retire at the end of his term.

The Issues

Dodd has a liberal voting record when it comes to social issues, though he is more moderate on economic policy. He voted with his party 95.5 percent of the time in the 110th Congress.

Dodd has close ties to the banking and insurance industries, and he has been charged with catering to their needs at the cost of consumers. He has sponsored several anti-regulation measures, and was one of the leaders in crafting the $700 billion bailout package in fall 2008. But the Democrat was also spearheading a drive for financial regulatory reform as a result of the 2008-2009 crisis that could end up being a major part of his legacy, if it is approved.

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When Dodd took over the Banking Committee in 2007, he set a fairly populist agenda, hoping to increase funding for affordable housing, placing tighter restrictions on foreign investment in the economy and pushing keeping manufacturing jobs in America.

Dodd worked with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to pass a bill that set federal standards for election counts and authorized nearly $4 billion to carry the legislation out. He formed the first Children's Caucus in the Senate, and helped pass the Family and Medical Leave Act, which requires companies to offer employees paid leave to tend to sick family members.

The Economy

Dodd has often been accused of pandering to the large number of hedge funds and financial institutions in Connecticut by opposing more stringent regulation on businesses. The top donors to his campaigns are banks, insurance companies, real estate offices and law firms.

In 1998, he was given a Golden Leash award from Public Campaign, a campaign finance reform advocacy group. The group said Dodd was chosen for the "award," given to members with the largest connections to special interests, because of his fundraising base and his support of measures that would have reduced oversight of the financial sector.

This summer, the Center for Responsive Politics reported that Dodd received the most money from Countrywide Financial of any senator and that he had been placed in their priority lending program called "Friends of Angelo" for receiving favorable terms on his home mortgage. Dodd had criticized Countrywide and other mortgage companies as the culprits in the sub-prime mortgage meltdown.

Dodd acknowledged that he had accepted the favorable terms, though he said he thought it was because of his credit scores, and not his political position.

But Dodd has also bucked his donors. He helped write the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which tightened regulations on the management of public companies. He has also taken credit card-companies to task for predatory lending practices.

When Dodd was elevated to chair of the Senate Banking Committee in 2007, one of his top goals was creating a new regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He was critical of the Treasury Department's decision to take over the two mortgage giants, charging that Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson acted too quickly without exploring lower-cost alternatives.

But Dodd was also the top recipient of lobbying money from Fannie and Freddie, according to Open Secrets.org.

AIG

Dodd was at the center of a firestorm of criticism in March 2009 over $450 million in bonuses legally required to be paid to members of AIG Financial Products, which is primarily headquartered in Dodd's home state of Connecticut.

The "Dodd amendment" to the February 2009 $787 economic billion stimulus package was designed to limit executive compensation, but permitted bonus payments to companies receiving federal bailout money before Feb. 11, 2009. Dodd said he does not know how that particular date made its way into the amendment. He is considering a plan to tax those bonuses at a prohibitively high rate.

Financial Regulation Reform

In March 2010, Dodd unveiled his long-awaited version of financial regulation reform. The measure would increase the Federal Reserve's oversight responsibilities. The proposal would centralize the Fed's power in Washington, D.C. and New York, stripping much of the role played by the current regional Fed banks.

The bill would allow for the orderly dissolution of big financial institutions whose destruction would threaten the entire U.S. economy at no cost to taxpayers; for the first time, regulate the derivatives market that was blamed for helping to cause the 2008-2008 meltdown; create a financial council overseen by the Treasury Department to coordinate and monitor risk in the financial markets; create an independent consumer watchdog inside the Federal Reserve to give U.S. consumers clear information regarding financial products like credit cards and mortgages; and imposes regulations on derivatives trading, requiring most of it to take place in open marketplaces.

Health-Care Reform

In summer 2009, Dodd emerged as a player in the health-care reform debate when his ally, longtime health-reform advocate Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), was sidelined by medical troubles. Kennedy passed away in August 2009, but Dodd chose not to take over the chairmanship, choosing instead to remain chair of the banking committee.

As a 2008 presidential candidate, he proposed a plan to offer all Americans health insurance that would be similar to the coverage federal employees receive.

Kennedy chaired the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, one of the two committees working on a health-care bill in the Senate. But treatment for a brain cancer diagnosed the year before left Kennedy unable to attend key meetings on Capitol Hill.

Before Kennedy's death, Dodd chaired the mark-up for the health-reform bill, The Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, and oversaw it's approval by a vote of 13 to 10 along party lines.

The bill was Kennedy's baby, and called for progressive reforms including an option for Americans to purchase a public insurance plan, which ran into political trouble in summer 2009. Kennedy said including a government plan in the marketplace would "ensure that fiscal discipline and full accountabiliity are built into this new structure."

In addition to the public option, the HELP Committee's bill required that insurance companies offer coverage to all Americans, even if they have pre-existing conditions, and required all Americans to carry some form of health insurance. Businesses with more than 25 employees would be required to offer coverage to employees, and Americans could choose to compare and buy insurance on a national exchange.

Kennedy's death in August 2009 left Dodd as the presumptive heir to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions chairmanship, but Dodd chose not to take over the chairmanship.

Tort Reform

Connecticut is a business state leery of lawsuits, and Dodd supported his constituents, trying to limit the power and the scope of trial attorneys.

In 1995, he successfully passed, and then successfully worked to override a Clinton veto, on a securities litigation bill that made it more difficult to file a federal securities class action lawsuit. He was the lead sponsor on a bill to limit product liability lawsuits, which was also vetoed by Clinton.

Iraq War

Dodd was an early Iraq war supporter, arguing that if the United Nations wouldn't back their efforts, America would be justified in invading the country alone. He has since reversed his position, saying that if he knew Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, he would not have supported the war.

In 2007, Dodd introduced legislation that would have capped troop levels in Iraq at their current level. Any increase would require Congressional approval. The measure failed.

The Network

Dodd's closest friend in the Senate is Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass). He also enjoys a congenial relationship with ranking Banking Committee member Richard Shelby (R-Ala.).

Dodd and former President Bill Clinton are long-time golfing buddies. Clinton tried to convince him to run for president in 2004, but Dodd deferred to his colleague Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.). It wasn't the first time he had been encouraged to run; former Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.) tried to get Dodd into the race 20 years ago.

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Additional Resources