New to the Senate

Thursday, November 6, 2008

COLORADO

Mark Udall (D)

Rep. Mark Udall, 58, graduates to the Senate with his cousin, Rep. Tom Udall (D-N.M.).

Since childhood in Tucson, the cousins have been close, personally and politically. They are identified as ardent environmentalists, though Mark Udall's positions softened somewhat as he campaigned amid economic turmoil. He once opposed offshore drilling for oil, for example, but shifted in August to support a comprehensive energy strategy that allows some drilling.

Still, he arrives in the Senate with a "green" record that is broad and deep, having pushed to convert the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons site into a wildlife refuge and supported giving school districts funds to replace older diesel buses with alternative-fuel vehicles.

During five terms in Congress, Udall had a liberal voting record. He consistently opposed the Iraq war, rejected the construction of a U.S.-Mexico border fence and voted against the $700 billion Wall Street bailout. He fills the seat vacated by Sen. Wayne Allard (R).

He first ran for Senate in 2004 but dropped out to support the eventual winner, Ken Salazar (D).

An accomplished mountaineer known to quote the great Western writer Wallace Stegner, Udall is the son of former congressman and presidential candidate Morris K. "Mo" Udall (D-Ariz.). He worked for two decades with Colorado Outward Bound School, which was renamed Outward Bound West in 2003.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Jeanne Shaheen (D)

Jeanne Shaheen becomes her state's first female senator after an expensive, contentious rematch with the well-respected Sen. John E. Sununu (R).

A former teacher who served three terms as governor, Shaheen moved left in this year's Senate race, changing course on the Iraq war and President Bush's tax cuts. She now opposes both and belatedly announced that she would not support the $700 billion Wall Street bailout.

Shaheen, 61, benefited from this year's political climate -- Republican registration in New Hampshire has plummeted, and the "change" mantra introduced by Barack Obama and reprised by Shaheen found a receptive audience in the Granite State. (Her campaign slogan was "A New Direction.") In general, Shaheen embraces the Obama agenda on issues such as health care and energy, though she was criticized for a lack of specificity in her positions.

Early in her political career, the soft-spoken Shaheen worked on the presidential campaigns of Jimmy Carter and Gary Hart. She was credited in 2004 with helping Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) win her state's Democratic presidential primary.

In years when she opted to remain neutral, her colorful husband, Bill, signaled where family sentiment lay. He was state co-chairman for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) until he speculated about voter reaction to Obama's acknowledged early experimentation with drugs. He immediately resigned, but Clinton campaigned on Shaheen's behalf this fall.

NEW MEXICO

Tom Udall (D)

Election night ushered a pair of Udalls into the Senate, extending a family dynasty synonymous with public service and environmental protection. Rep. Tom Udall, 60, is the son of Stewart Udall, interior secretary during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

Like his younger cousin, who was elected to the Senate in Colorado, Udall served 10 years in the House before defeating Rep. Steve Pearce (R) for the Senate seat being vacated by Pete V. Domenici (R). Before winning his House seat, Udall was New Mexico's attorney general from 1991 to 1999.

As a youth, Udall split his time between Tucson and McLean. These days, he often sports cowboy boots in the halls of the Capitol.

Two years ago, Udall spearheaded the legislative effort to protect New Mexico's Valle Vidal, more than 10,000 pristine acres in the heart of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The area is home to black bears, bald eagles, mountain lions and cutthroat trout.

Though known for his environmental bona fides, Udall backs some expansion of nuclear energy and offshore drilling. He describes his energy approach as "do it all" and says he wants to make New Mexico the nation's "Saudi Arabia of wind and solar."

During the campaign, Udall called for a one-year withdrawal timetable for Iraq and several health-related measures, including a proposal to let all Americans older than 55 purchase Medicare insurance.

NORTH CAROLINA

Kay R. Hagan (D)

Kay R. Hagan, a state senator from Greensboro, is from a political family. Her father was once mayor of Lakeland, Fla. But the real powerhouse was her uncle, Lawton Chiles, the former Florida governor and U.S. senator for whom she handed out bumper stickers when she was young. When Hagan ran for the state Senate in 1998, her first attempt at public office, Chiles, then governor, campaigned with her door to door. She won.

Before entering politics, Hagan, a lawyer, was a vice president of the predecessor of Bank of America until her third child was born. She then was a full-time mother active in civic affairs.

In the state Senate, Hagan, 55, was co-chairman of the budget committee and formed a reputation as a pro-business Democrat. She worked to improve public education, expand health insurance for poor children and require high schools to teach financial literacy.

In this year's campaign, she defeated Sen. Elizabeth Dole with heavy advertising that portrayed the one-term incumbent -- a veteran of two Cabinet posts and one of the Republican Party's most prominent women -- as too close to the Bush administration and too remote from North Carolina.

VIRGINIA

Mark R. Warner (D)

Mark R. Warner, once widely considered likely to pursue the presidency, ran instead for the Senate and crushed fellow former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore with nearly two-thirds of the vote.

Warner, 53, came to politics after a highly lucrative career in telecommunications. He co-founded the company that became Nextel and was managing partner of Columbia Capital, a venture capital fund. Elected governor in 2001, he had difficulty in Richmond at first, as he faced the biggest revenue drop in state history, and voters in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads rejected his plan to pay for transportation projects with regional sales taxes. But he left office in 2006 with a budget surplus, an agreement with the Republican General Assembly that raised taxes by $1.4 billion -- and an 80 percent approval rating.

Warner prepared for a presidential campaign, but said in October that he would not run. Nearly a year later, Republican Sen. John W. Warner (no relation), whom Warner had tried to unseat in 1996, announced he would retire. Mark Warner entered the Senate race two weeks later.